


An Explorer, an Adventurer, a Gunfighter, Some Treasure Seekers… and One Historian

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Amy Preston is Fantastic, Buckle Up Buttercups!, But Not Our OT3, Different Timeline Same Trash OT3, F/M, Flynn is Trash, He's Also a BAMF, I Mean it's the Mummy, I had way too much fun with this, I promise, It's the Mummy AU I Promised, Join Me in the Garbage Folks, Lucy Preston is a Queen, M/M, Multi, Rufus Did Not Ask for This Shit, Terrible I Tell You, The Temptation to Just Recite the Entire Movie Verbatim Was Terrible, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, Wyatt is Also a Simultaneously BAMF/Trash Individual, You Know People are Gonna Die, all the quotes, so many quotes, some people will die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-05-16 18:03:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 44,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: Lucy Preston knows there’s no such things as supernatural creatures. Flynn knows better. Amy Preston knows that there’s got to be treasure hidden in the ancient city. Carol Preston and Nicholas Keynes know their team’s going to get to it first.All Wyatt knows is that he didn’t sign up for any of this shit.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I had the idea for this. And then dorothy-williams asked me to elaborate. And then it just exploded from there.
> 
> BUT C'MON, HAVE YOU SEEN A MORE PERFECT TIMELESS AU

Thebes – 1290 B.C.

_We were not always desert dwellers, living on the fringes, hiding our true natures._

_Once, we were the bodyguards of the pharaohs._

_We were sacred warriors. We guarded not only the pharaoh, but the soul of the nation. We guarded a god._

_But there are always those who seek to take that power for themselves. Those who want something so desperately, that they will not allow anything—not even death—to stand in their way._

_Imhotep was one such person._

_He was the Pharaoh’s high priest, his most trusted advisor, and the most powerful wielder of magic in the kingdom. It was said that he conversed with Ra himself._

_But Imhotep was no god. He was a man, and he had a man’s weaknesses. His weakness was for Anck-Su-Namun, the Pharaoh’s mistress._

_No other man was allowed to touch her, but for love, people are often willing to risk life itself._

_I told my lord that he should not trust her. I warned him that Imhotep was growing too powerful. But he was a trusting man and would not listen to my pleas._

_That night, I felt a chill in the air. I told my wife—Set is walking the lands tonight._

_I followed my lord as I must, keeping a polite distance. It was there that he saw something that disturbed him. He bade me and my fellows stay back._

_He went into the temple, alone._

_And he never came out._

_For Imhotep and Ank-Su-Namun were meeting, and he caught them—and Imhotep, filled with rage that this man should be his master when he was the more powerful, and she with rage that she was bound to a man she did not love—the two of them killed him._

_I heard the noise. I commanded that the temple doors be opened, and we rushed in._

_We were too late._

_Anck-Su-Namun stood proud. She was never one who feared death._

_“My body is no longer his temple!”_

_She stabbed herself before I could get to her._

_But that was not the end._

_While the rest of the Upper and Lower kingdom mourned the passing of our pharaoh, Imhotep stole Ank-Su-Namun’s body and fled with it to Hamunaptra, the sacred city of the dead. There lay a portal, a pool to the domain of Osiris: the underworld._

_He called upon Ank-Su-Namun’s spirit, and tried to bring her back from the dead, but I knew his ways and I followed him._

_The new pharaoh ordered the punishment. I told him that one must be careful in dealing too much punishment. There is justice, and there is vengeance._

_But the man had seen his father murdered, and he wanted blood._

_And so we performed, for the first time, the Hom-Dai._

_The priests who had helped Imhotep were mummified alive, while Imhotep had his tongue removed, and was buried alive with the flesh-eating beetles we had prepared for just such a purpose._

_If only we had known what performing such an act upon such a man would do. If only we had known then the curse that would hang over our heads._

_But we did not know, not until it is too late._

_And now I wait. And I watch. From the shadows, I and my brethren stalk, prepared, always, to protect this land and all lands from the wrath of Imhotep._

_It is only a matter of time._

* * *

 

 

Hamunaptra – 1923

 

Most of the time, Flynn liked his job.

Okay, not his job. Sorry. His ‘calling’.

Because most of the time, his job was basically ‘live a normal life and don’t do anything too stupid’ which he could get behind.

But every once in a while, his job required doing something like this:

Watch some very very very stupid members of the French Foreign Legion get their asses handed to them.

When he got a chance he was going to ask Head Medjai why the hell he’d been sent all the way out here just to watch a bunch of French people get shot.

Actually, he knew why he was there. He knew why he’d been sent away from the others, out to the middle of nowhere, why he was being given missions that kept him away from home.

It was the tribe’s way of distracting him. Of keeping him from being reminded of what he’d lost.

Well, joke was on them because he wasn’t ever going to forget. He was never going to forget what this war had done to his precious family. His beautiful wife. His darling baby girl.

Egypt wasn’t even in the war. This wasn’t their fight. But France and England and Germany and Italy and all those other assholes had decided to fight here anyway, and his family had been caught in the crossfire.

It made him want to go down and shoot a few of those soldiers himself, just to even things up a bit.

But he knew his orders. And he didn’t dare cross them. He knew the Head Medjai was already suspicious of his temper, waiting to see if he should be taken off the field. He wasn’t going to let that happen—the sacred mission was all that he had to live for now.

And so he simply watched.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt Logan was really starting to regret signing up for this damn war.

He probably should’ve started regretting it back when their commander had decided he was going to march them however many miles through the desert to get to this random-ass set of ruins in the middle of nowhere.

Or maybe he should’ve started regretting it when he’d gotten assigned to this godforsaken dusty country instead of Europe.

But he was definitely regretting it as he turned, saw their commanding officer take in the hoards of riders heading straight for them… and turn on his horse and flee.

“Wow,” Wyatt said, out loud. He’d just… left them there.

He probably should have been more upset about that. And maybe he would have been, if he’d had anything waiting for him at the end of this war the way that most of the other men did. But he didn’t. Which was why he’d signed up in the first place.

“Looks like you just got promoted,” Dave “Bam Bam” Baumgardner pointed out—another American who’d signed up with the French since the United States was still neutral in the war.

Wyatt rolled his eyes but readied his gun. “ _Prenez-vous positions!_ ”

His German was much better than his French, but he’d picked up a few things.

“We’re going to die,” Dave muttered.

“I’m aware,” Wyatt replied. “Steady!” he yelled.

He’d pictured himself dying plenty of times but it hadn’t ever been in the middle of some godforsaken Egyptian ruins.

The horsemen thundered towards them. Wyatt could sense some of the men trembling. “Steady!” he repeated.

The horsemen were almost right on top of them. Talk about seeing the whites of their eyes.

“Fire!”

They got in a few good hits but they were outnumbered ten to one and being cut down like fucking ninepins. Wyatt started backing up, dropping his shotgun and pulling out his six shooters. “Run for it!” he told Dave. “I’ll cover you!”

Dave took off, with Wyatt drawing the horsemen in with his fire. There was one point of access to the ancient city that their legion had managed to open before they’d been attacked. If they could just get behind the door, they’d be safe.

Wyatt fired again, catching movement out of the corner of his eye. It was a horseman, coming around the side, cutting him off.

“Bam Bam!” he yelled. “Close the door!”

Dave was sliding into the entrance, kicking up sand. “Logan!”

“Just close the damn door!” There was no way he’d get there in time, and if the door wasn’t closed, Dave would bite the dust too.

He could see Dave hesitating. Wyatt fired again. “Do it!”

Finally, Dave started closing the massive stone door.

Wyatt turned and took off running.

He dodged between the massive stone pillars, trying to keep his footing in the soft, treacherous sand. He was out of ammo. There was nowhere else to hide. He was on foot, they were on horses.

Yeah, he wasn’t betting on himself here.

He rounded a pillar and nearly fell over trying to skid to a halt as another horseman came around the corner. He turned—and there was another one.

And another one.

Wyatt backed up against the base of a statue and closed his eyes.

At least he’d be with Jess again.

Then one of the horses neighed violently, kicking up sand. The other horses began to do the same. The men started yelling. A strange wind blew up, a wind that almost seemed to have a voice…

Wyatt cautiously opened one eye. Then the other.

The horsemen were gone.

What the hell?

An almighty roar of wind blew by, throwing up sand almost in a kind of whirlwind. Wyatt yelped and stumbled back out of the way, coughing, bringing his hand up to shield his eyes.

It was probably his imagination but… he could have sworn…

The wind carved the sand into the shape of a horrifying, screaming face.

 

* * *

 

Flynn watched as the lone survivor of the legion stumbled out into the desert.

Head Medjai would probably say that he should kill the man. But Flynn had been watching. He’d seen the man draw the horsemen away from his friend, give up his own life to save the other.

He couldn’t punish that.

Let the desert have him. If the man was fated to live, he would live. If he was fated to die, he would die.

Either way, Flynn knew he wouldn’t be coming back to Hamunaptra.

Their secret was safe for another day.


	2. Chapter 2

Cairo, Egypt – Three Years Later

 

Lucy Preston loved her job.

No, really, she did.

She got to examine mummies, she got to give tours of the museum, she got to handle priceless artifacts…

It was just that she really, _really_ hated re-shelving.

Honestly, if she died and went to Hell, it would be a massive library where she had to re-shelve all the books for eternity. There was nothing more mind-numbing.

Couldn’t Dr. Christopher have Jiya do this or something? Not that she meant to dump all the work on Jiya or anything but… come on. She had a doctorate, for crying out loud, didn’t that mean she was entitled to boss people around just a little?

Lucy hauled herself up the ladder with a new stack of books. She knew the real reason why she was in such a bad mood, of course. The Rittenhouse Scholars had rejected her application, again. Claimed she didn’t have enough field experience.

Field experience. As if she didn’t know the real reason why. Lucy didn’t know at this point if Mom honestly thought that her daughter wasn’t good enough or if she was just keeping her out of the Egyptology society to spite Lucy, but either way, it was a pain in the goddamn ass.

Lucy pulled up the next book and groaned out loud.

“Thutmose?” Are you kidding me?

She turned and looked over her shoulder. Well, the ‘T’ section was just right there…

With the book in one hand and the ladder in the other, Lucy stretched carefully across the aisle. If she could just… slide the book… in place…

The ladder wobbled, she jerked back instinctively, and then—

Lucy gave a little shriek as the ladder reared backward, managing to stand on two feet like she was some kind of circus performer, and then slammed forward into the bookshelf.

Which then gave a massive groan and began to tip forward.

“Oh no.” Oh, no, no, no…

The bookshelf tipped onto its side and Lucy fell off the ladder, rolling in a pile of books. The bookshelf slammed into the one next to it, which slammed into the one next to that, which slammed into…

For the record, whoever had the idea to put the bookshelves in a circle around the room? That person was an idiot.

Lucy scrambled to her feet, brushing the dirt off her skirt, in time to watch the last of the bookshelves fall.

Oh God. Dr. Christopher was going to _kill_ her.

“What the—”

Oh look. Speak of the devil.

“Sons of the pharaohs!” Dr. Denise Christopher strode into the room, gaping. “Lucy—what the hell?”

“It was an accident,” Lucy promised.

Jiya, Dr. Christopher’s assistant, peeked out from behind her. She saw the mess and immediately looked at Lucy, wide-eyed, as if to say _you are so dead_.

Dr. Christopher sighed. “Honestly, I feel like you’re the eleventh plague that got left behind.”

“Thanks, I love being compared to a swarm of locusts.”

Dr. Christopher gave her a stern look and pointed at the mess. “Straighten this up.”

Lucy resisted the urge to stick her tongue out, but it was a near thing. Jiya gave her an apologetic face as Dr. Christopher stormed out.

Lucy buried her face into her hands. Great. Just great. The perfect way to end a shitty day.

She walked back out of the library and into the gallery to grab one of the carts. She’d need one to load up the books.

At least the museum was closed now so nobody was around to see her cry.

As if in response to her thought, there was the sound of something slamming closed.

Lucy froze.

Nobody was supposed to be in here anymore. Dr. Christopher always closed the museum promptly. And then she went to the second floor to work on her translations, with Jiya’s help, so it wasn’t either of them.

“Hello?” Lucy called. Maybe Jiya forgot something? “Jiya?”

Or maybe one of the day workers who helped to keep the place clean was hanging around. “Mohammed? Bob?”

Silence.

Lucy swallowed hard. It was times like these she wished she’d taken up her sister’s offer to teach her how to fire a gun. If she even owned a gun.

She moved carefully through the gallery, which showcased the various sarcophagi that the museum had collected. Maybe it was a rat? Or a draft? Or…

A mummy jumped out at her.

Lucy screamed, stumbling backwards—and then she heard the laughter.

“Oh my God,” Amy Preston said, popping up from where she’d been lying inside the sarcophagus. “You should have seen your face!”

Lucy grabbed the mummy from her sister and gently laid it back down. “Amy, honestly, have you no respect for the dead?”

“Why my sweet elder sister, of course I do!” Amy bounded out of the sarcophagus. Amy didn’t really walk anywhere, she just bounced and bounded about like a rabbit. “But sometimes, I’d rather like to join them.”

Lucy sighed. She appreciated that Amy was rebelling against Mom in her own way, she really did, but… “Look, Amy, I really don’t have the time right now. I’ve just made a bit of a mess in the library, and Dr. Christopher will have my head if I don’t get it all sorted out, and the Rittenhouse Scholars have rejected my application again…”

“What?” Amy sat down on the edge of the sarcophagus. “Whatever for, you’re the smartest person in your field!”

“They claim I don’t have enough field experience, but you and I both know what that really means.”

“Mom fucking persuaded them,” Amy seethed. “Next time I see her, Lucy, I swear to God I’m gonna knock her teeth out.”

“Amy, please, she’s our mother.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “Mother or not, she’s behaving like a child.”

Lucy really didn’t want to get into it any further. It just made her sad. “Why are you here, exactly?”

“Oh!” Amy brightened up and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small metal box of some kind. “Look what I found! Got it on a dig down in Thebes.”

Lucy carefully picked up the small box. It didn’t look like much, but the hieroglyphs on it were interesting.

“My whole life I’ve never found anything,” Amy admitted, her voice hushed. “I want to rub it in Mom’s face so bad, Lucy, tell me I’ve found something.”

Odd, it was like there was an indentation… and like these parts moved…

The box suddenly sprang open and Lucy gasped a little in surprise. It was a puzzle box!

And inside… was a folded up piece of parchment.

“Amy,” Lucy whispered. “I think you’ve found something.”


	3. Chapter 3

Lucy couldn’t help her nervousness as she watched Dr. Christopher handle the opened puzzle box, and then inspect the map.

“You can’t possibly expect me to believe that this is genuine,” the curator said, holding the map up to the light.

“I’ve already dated it,” Lucy promised. “You see those hieroglyphs there? Those are exclusively from the reign of Pharaoh Seti I.”

“Who’s he?” Amy asked, sounding confused.

“He’s often called the forgotten pharaoh,” Lucy explained. “His father was much more well known, amassed a great deal of wealth and power for Ancient Egypt. Seti took the throne after him and ended up causing a huge scandal by taking the high priestess of Isis as his lover. She was supposed to remain virginal, it really pissed off the priests.”

“Isn’t Isis one of the goddesses of motherhood and fertility?” Amy asked.

“Yes, I’m aware of the contradictions,” Lucy said. “After Seti was murdered—”

“Murdered?” Amy looked gleeful. “Oh, this is good.”

“The priests did a lot of work to erase him from history. And they succeeded. His son became a powerful pharaoh as well. Sandwiched between the two of them, Seti was forgotten the way that they wanted.”

Lucy picked up the puzzle box, waving it. “Which means, that this is most likely genuine! All of his cartouches were destroyed, Denise, how would someone even get a hold of a proper cartouche to copy it?”

Dr. Christopher hummed noncommittally.

“You said his dad amassed a lot of wealth,” Amy said. “So, how rich, exactly, was this Seti guy?”

“Very,” Lucy said. “He might have been forgotten but his wealth wasn’t. It’s supposedly buried in the city of Hamunaptra. It was used as the resting place of the pharaohs up until Seti’s reign, although details are sketchy as to why they switched to the Valley of the Kings.”

Dr. Christopher sighed, bending over near her candle to try and make out some of the fainter hieroglyphs. “Hamunaptra is a story that started when local guides started telling the tale to Greek and Roman tourists to explain where the wealth had supposedly gone. It was only a way to cover up the lack of more gold when the Romans got greedy.”

“There’s a definite gap in wealth between the beginning of the reign of Seti I and his son’s ascension to the throne,” Lucy argued.

“Wait, hold on, isn’t this the city with a curse on it?” Amy asked.

“Amy, none of that curse business is actually real, we’re not going to get chomped in half by a hippopotamus,” Lucy replied.

“Yes, well, I think it’s all fairy tales and hokum—” Dr. Christopher yelped in surprise as the corner of the map caught the candle flaming, catching fire. She dropped it instinctively.

“Oh no!” Lucy cried, grabbing the map and stamping out the fire. “Oh, Denise, you’ve burnt the part with the lost city on it!”

Dr. Christopher folded her arms. “It’s probably for the best. Plenty of people have disappeared looking for that city. I happen to like you sometimes, I don’t want you to be another one.”

“Was that almost a compliment?” Lucy asked as Amy carefully folded up the map.

“Emphasis on the ‘almost’, Miss Preston, and don’t get used to it.”

 

* * *

 

“Question,” Amy asked as they entered the prison. “If Dr. Christopher isn’t agreeing to fund this, then where are we getting the money?”

“My funds,” Lucy replied.

She could feel her sister gaping at her, as well she might. Amy had begged Lucy to help her out for ages and she’d never once dipped into the inheritance their father had left her. “You’re serious?” Amy asked.

“Dead serious. That map was genuine. If your man can get us to Hamunaptra, the Rittenhouse Scholars will have to let me in, and screw what Mother says. This’ll be the find of the decade.”

“You’re taking an awfully big risk,” Amy said.

“I appreciate your obligation to warn me, but trust me, I’ve already thought it over.” Lucy led her hand up to signal to the warden that they’d arrived. “And it’s not like you’ve got any inheritance left.”

“Don’t remind me,” Amy grumbled.

“Ah, Miss Preston. And Miss Preston.” The warden was a bald, surprisingly sophisticated dark-skinned man who spoke in a crisp British accent. “I’m Connor Mason, please, right this way.”

His smile was clearly pained, the smile of those who have to do customer service and hate it. “I’m surprised at your accent,” Lucy noted. “I would’ve thought you were from around here.”

“Trust me, sometimes I forget that I’m not from around here. That places other than this dusty hellhole exist,” Mason replied. “No, I served with the RAF during the war. All those other boys got to die in a blaze of glory and now I’m here rotting away with boredom and booze.”

“Not the RAF speech again,” said another voice, this one from a younger black man. At first Lucy thought that he was related to Mason, given the casual tone, but their faces looked nothing alike. A friend, perhaps?

Mason rolled his eyes. “Meet Rufus Carlin, my assistant and protégé, if one can call being a prison warden something that is worthy of earning one a protégé. Ignore him, he has a terminal case of sarcasm.”

“Better than your terminal case of repetition,” Rufus replied cheerfully. He held out his hand. “You must be the Preston sisters, Connor said you were coming. I got the prisoner brought out for you.”

“What exactly is he in here for?” Lucy asked.

“When I asked,” Rufus replied, “he told me that he was just looking for a good time.”

“That might be partly my fault,” Amy mumbled.

“Of course it is,” Lucy sighed. “Tell me, at what point did pickpocketing a man in a local casbah sound like a good idea to you? Hmm?”

“Oh, is she the one who picked his pocket?” Mason asked musingly. “He’s been complaining about that. Claims it’s what started the whole mess that landed him in here.”

“You told me you got it down in Thebes,” Lucy said. She really should be used to Amy’s antics by now and yet she just kept falling for them.

“Well I knew you’d never look at it if I told you where I really got it,” Amy replied, completely unrepentant as usual.

“You lied to me.”

“I lie to everybody, what makes you so special?”

“I’m your sister, Amy.”

“Yes, but darling, that just makes you more gullible.”

Rufus and Mason led them to a sort of outdoor cage. Some prisoners were in others, talking to people outside the cages—mostly family members, by the looks of it.

“We get far too many people in here,” Mason complained. “The police think the best way to keep order is just to arrest as many people as possible, even if it’s for ridiculous reasons, and half the men in here stole a loaf of bread or something equally unworthy of being locked up for six months.”

The man in the cage they were being led too had his head bowed, but there was no sense of the cowed about him. It was more like he was waiting, biding his time until he could attack, like a predator. He was white, but quite tan, and his dark blond hair was filled with sand.

It was almost like he’d been out in the desert for months, Lucy thought. Even living in Cairo, in the city you at least could duck inside, and get yourself shade. Out in the desert, though, the sun always found you. There was no place to hide.

The man looked up as Lucy crouched carefully down in front of the cage. “Hello.”

The man stared at her. He wasn’t too bad looking, underneath the dust and the grime. He had rather bright blue eyes. His gaze flicked from her, to Amy, and then back to Lucy. “Ma’am.”

“We’re the same age, I’m sure you don’t need to call me that.” Lucy pulled out the puzzle box. “My name is Lucy Preston, and I’m here to ask you about your puzzle box.”

The man squinted at the box, then looked back up at Amy. “…I know you.”

Amy smiled brightly. “I’ve just got one of those faces.”

That was when they learned Amy shouldn’t have been standing right in front of the cage, because the man sprang up and decked her through the bars.

Amy yelped as blood spurted out of her nose. Lucy rolled her eyes. “Serves you right, Amy, you got the man arrested.”

“You’re a horrible excuse for a sister,” Amy replied, accepting the handkerchief that Rufus held out to her.

Lucy held up the puzzle box, showing it to the man. “I’d like to ask you some questions about this.”

The man shook his head slowly. “No,” he said, and now that she was paying better attention, she could recognize that his accent was American. “You’re here to ask me about Hamunaptra.”

Lucy could feel her jaw going slack. “You know it?”

“Know it?” The man gave her a slow, sly grin. “Ma’am, I’ve been there. Old Seti’s place. City of the Dead.”

“You swear?”

“Every damn day.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

The man peered at her. “You really want to know?”

“Do I look like I came all the way down here because I wasn’t sure?”

He stared at her for a moment, as if weighing his options. Then he nodded. “I suppose I could tell you how to get there, on one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

The man grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her in, kissing her fiercely. “Get me out of here,” he told her.

Lucy gaped at him as guards came out to grab him, hauling him back inside and out of her sight.

“Damn, I think I’ll take the punch over that,” Amy said, her voice nasally with her stuffed nose.

“Where are they taking him?” Lucy asked Mason.

“To be hanged, apparently,” Mason replied, checking his clipboard. “Seems he had a _very_ good time.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy hurried after Mason. “You can’t possibly hang him!”

“I’m afraid I don’t have as much power as you seem to think,” Mason replied. “I am not a king, my dear. If anything I am a Lear, taken advantage of, my kingdom stripped, my—”

“Yes, Connor, lovely comparison,” Rufus snapped. “But I’m with Miss Preston here—”

“Just call me Lucy, otherwise Amy and I will just keep getting confused.”

“I agree with Lucy,” Rufus amended. “Mason, if we go with them—”

“Hold on,” Amy yelped, hurrying to catch up, “who said anything about you two going with us?”

They entered a large square, up on a sort of balcony, staring down into a courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard was a large, old, creaking gallows.

And being led up to the gallows was the man.

Lucy’s heart leapt into her throat. Not only did she not want to see a man—any man, really—be hanged, she couldn’t lose her one chance at getting to Hamunaptra and finally making her mark on the archeological world.

The man was placed in front of the noose. The executioner asked him something, probably if he had a last request.

“Yeah,” the man replied. “Loosen the knot and let me go.”

The executioner looked up at Mason, who sighed like this wasn’t the first time somebody had tried this trick. “You idiot, of course we’re not letting him go!”

“We’ll let you come,” Lucy said quickly. “And we’ll give you ten percent of the profits.”

“Fifty,” Mason countered.

“Twenty.”

“Forty.”

“Thirty.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Ah-ha!” Lucy cried, triumphant.

Mason glared at her, then looked over at Rufus, who was looking mighty determined. “If you’re not taking the one chance we have of actually getting out of here,” he said, “then I am.”

Mason groaned. “Cut him down!” he yelled to the executioner down below.

Lucy grinned triumphantly. She had her guide.

 

* * *

 

Just a day later, and Lucy was watching her supplies for her very own expedition getting loaded at Giza Port.

She was so giddy it felt like she was floating. She was going on an expedition, and she was going to find the lost city, and she was going to rub it so thoroughly in Mother’s face she’d never get the stain off.

“I don’t think he’s coming,” Amy said, peering around.

“He’ll be here,” Lucy replied.

Rufus waved at them as he and a grumpy looking Mason walked up. “Ignore him,” Rufus said. “He hasn’t gotten enough sleep.”

Lucy passed them their tickets. “Keeping a close eye on your investment, I see,” she said.

“It should be fun, right?” Rufus asked.

“Fun,” Mason replied sardonically. “As if any of you know about true adventure, about life and death, about—”

“Yeah, yeah, up onto the boat, Connor,” Rufus replied.

Lucy smothered a smile. The two men struck her as a sort of father-son duo, even if they weren’t related.

“No sign of him,” Amy said, turning back to Lucy. “Honestly, Lucy, if he doesn’t show up the whole thing’s cracked, and I—”

Lucy raised an eyebrow and Amy paused. “…he’s right behind me, isn’t he.”

Lucy nodded.

Amy turned around, smiling brightly at the man they’d learned, after getting him released, was Wyatt Logan, formerly a Sergeant Major of the French Foreign Legion. “Logan!” Amy said, smiling. “Good to see you, beautiful day for sailing, you clean up well, no hard feelings and all that?”

“Sure,” Wyatt replied, in a tone that said he was going to be keeping a close eye on his belongings with Amy around.

“Don’t worry,” Amy said brightly, patting him on the chest. “I never steal from a partner.”

She skipped off up the gangplank.

Wyatt patted his chest as if checking to see if his wallet was still there. Amy was right, Lucy couldn't help but think. He did clean up well. He'd shaved and showered, and now she could better see the blue eyes, the strong lines of his face, the soft look of his hair. There was an almost soft air to his features, like he was made for something gentle before life had kicked him in the teeth.

“She really won’t,” Lucy said. “Steal from you, that is. She knows you’ll get her for it.”

“I take it you’re the responsible one,” Wyatt said.

“My mother would say that depends upon your definition of responsible,” Lucy replied. “Shall we, Mr. Logan?”

He made a sweeping hand motion. “After you, Miss Preston.”

“Wait!”

Both turned to see a thin figure running towards them, bag in hand.

“Jiya?” Lucy said, surprised.

Jiya skidded to a halt in front of her. “Dr. Christopher,” she said, in between gulps of air, “said I was to, accompany, you, make sure, you stay out, of trouble.”

It was rather thoughtful of Dr. Christopher. She couldn’t have spared Jiya easily. “Are you certain that it’s all right if you come? I wouldn’t want her to be too short staffed.”

“She said she was more worried about you getting eaten by bugs or something,” Jiya replied, getting a big of her breath back. “And I’ve always wanted to go on an expedition before I settle down.”

“I suppose you can share my cabin,” Lucy said. “Goodness knows I’m not subjecting anyone to having to share with Amy.”

Jiya grinned at her. “Whatever you say, boss.”

“Friend of yours?” Wyatt asked as Jiya hurried up the gangplank and presented her ticket, although goodness knew how she’d obtained it.

“Coworker,” Lucy replied.

They made their own way up the gangplank, presenting their tickets and settling in.

All the while unaware that they were being carefully watched.


	4. Chapter 4

Lucy got settled into her cabin with Jiya. Amy and Wyatt each had their own, while Rufus and Mason were also sharing. Lucy would have put Amy and Wyatt together, for she trusted them to both keep their hands off each other in the sexual sense… but she definitely didn’t trust them to keep from possibly punching each other. Wyatt struck her as a hot-tempered person—he had kissed her, after all, for no damn reason—and Amy was not known for her patience or foresight.

“Are you really sure about this?” Jiya asked as they unpacked their things. She sounded a little… not nervous, exactly. More contemplative. Curious.

“Not at all,” Lucy confided. “But, well, I thought maybe it was about time I started going after the things that I wanted. This will be my ticket to the Rittenhouse Scholars.”

“You really want to be included,” Jiya said quietly.

“My mother is one of their members,” Lucy replied. “As was my father. It’s very prestigious. And. Well. It would be nice to have my knowledge recognized, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that what we all want?”

Jiya shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I’d just like… to live a normal life.”

Lucy wanted to ask what that meant—there was an odd note of melancholy in the other woman’s voice—but then Amy burst in.

Amy tended to burst into situations.

“Lucy, you better come quick,” she said. “You won’t believe who’s here.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt was patrolling the boat. He knew it was paranoid but he still wasn’t quite used to the idea of being, well, free. Since jail…

No, Logan, he thought. Be honest with yourself.

Since Hamunaptra, he’d felt like there were a pair of eyes at his back.

Someone was watching him. He just knew it. He could sense it, even though every time he turned around there was no one there.

He was being hunted.

But if he _was_ being hunted, then why hadn’t he ever been attacked? What were the people or spirits or whatever that was following him doing if they didn’t want to kill him?

Sometimes he got the feeling that if he just… turned around he’d…

Wyatt froze.

There was someone.

His heart was hammering in his chest. The person drew near…

“Bam Bam?”

“Logan!”

Dave grabbed Wyatt in a bear hug, which Wyatt enthusiastically returned. “Jesus, man, I thought you were dead or something!”

“You thought I was dead? Logan, you disappeared!” Dave pulled back, searching Wyatt’s face. “When I got out of the tomb from hiding, you were gone. I didn’t see your body… but I thought, I don’t know, maybe they’d dragged you off or something.”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, I evaded them, and then went out into the desert. A Bedouin tribe found me.”

He’d felt the eyes on him in the desert too. Like someone was watching him. Sometimes he wondered… the Bedouin tribe had never talked about how they’d found him. It was out of their usual route, though, Wyatt knew that.

It was impossible that someone had given them directions, told them about him, wasn’t it?

Point was, there were things about his rescue, about Hamunaptra, that hadn’t added up. Things he was trying to forget in a damn bar when that sneaky little blonde had picked his pocket.

Her sister the brunette was just as sneaky. Damn gorgeous, though. With sharp brown eyes…

“Wait,” Wyatt said, frowning. “Bam Bam, what are you doing here?”

Dave tilted his head, indicating the social area of the boat. “I was hired by this group of Americans. They’re a part of this group, Rittenhouse Scholars, they want to launch an expedition to Hamunaptra. I didn’t like that place, creepy you know. When I was in that entrance…” Dave shuddered. “It felt like I was standing on someone’s grave. And the someone knew it.”

Wyatt clapped him on the shoulder. “I know how you feel. That place isn’t natural.”

“But they’ll only pay me half now and half when we get there,” Dave said. “I’m short on money. Got to get home. I’ve been real adrift after the war, y’know?”

“Trust me, I do.” Wyatt had been more than adrift. Without a war to fight, without anything to distract him from the painful truth of how alone he was in the world, of how Jess, the last person he could call family, was gone…

“Wait.” Dave stared at him with a grin. “Don’t tell me you’re going there too.”

Wyatt nodded. “Times got tough enough.”

“How tough?”

Miss Preston emerged from her cabin, her younger sister with her, and Wyatt jerked his head towards her. “See that brunette?”

Dave turned and looked over his shoulder. Miss Preston saw them, gave Wyatt a stern look, and then walked away, following her sister. “Yeah.”

“She saved my life. I owe her.”

Dave turned back to Wyatt. “Have you finally found someone to…”

“Don’t, Bam, just don’t.” Nobody could replace Jess.

Dave shrugged. “I’m just saying. It’s been six years. You shouldn’t spend the rest of your life alone. It’s not replacing Jess. I’m sure she’d want you to find someone to be happy with.”

“Right.”

“I’m going to go check on my employers,” Dave said. “You want to come?”

“I’ll catch you in a minute.”

Dave clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to see you, Logan. I’m glad if I have to go back there that I’ve got you with me.”

“Same here.”

Dave turned and walked the same way as the Preston sisters. Wyatt watched him go, then looked out at the water.

And felt it.

Eyes. On the back of his neck.

Watching.

“You ever gonna do more than that?” Wyatt asked. “Or are you still doing the whole strong and silent routine?”

Nothing.

Yeah, he was officially losing his mind.

 

* * *

 

Lucy followed her sister, wondering what could possibly be so bad…

“Oh no.”

“Miss Preston!” Mason said, turning and grinning. He was sitting at a table playing cards with three others. “And Miss Preston! Would you like to come and join us?”

“We’re quite all right, thank you,” Lucy said.

Another man, the one that Mr. Logan had been talking to, appeared from around the corner. He waved, and then went to go talk to the fifth person sitting apart.

Carol Preston.

Lucy and Amy’s mother.

Lucy looked at her sister. Amy raised her eyebrows.

“Mr. Logan!” Mason called as the man himself appeared. “Care to join us?”

“I only gamble with my life, never my money,” Wyatt replied.

“Oh yeah?” said one of the men—the younger one. There was an older one, perhaps a couple of years older than Carol. The fourth person at the table was a redheaded woman with the kind of beauty that killed a man.

This younger man was nice looking, if a bit bland, with dark hair. “How about five hundred bucks says we get to Hamunaptra before you?”

“You’re going to Hamunaptra?” Lucy felt as though someone had stabbed her. She turned to look at Carol, still lounging and reading a book on Cleopatra. “Mother, you said it was all hogwash!”

“I changed my mind,” Carol replied. “Now that we’ve got a man who’s been there.”

“Well that’s fascinating,” Mason began, “because Loga—”

Mr. Logan shifted the bag he was carrying from his right shoulder to his left, managing to whack Mason with it in the process. Mason glared at him but kept his mouth shut.

“Gentlemen,” Mr. Logan said, “Ladies. We got us a wager.” In a low voice he added to Lucy, “This woman’s your mother?”

“Unfortunately,” Amy replied acidly.

“It’s a long story,” Lucy said.

She walked up to Carol. “Mother.”

“Lucy.” Carol smiled up at her. “Darling, I am so sorry to hear that your application was rejected again. That must be heartbreaking for you. You know…”

“Spare me the false sympathy, Mother, please,” Lucy said. She already felt exhausted. “I don’t suppose there’s any way that I could convince you to give up on this and allow me to have one thing—one expedition—that is all my own?”

“Well, dear, you know how much I admire your work, but I really—”

“You really couldn’t stand to set aside your own selfish needs for your children,” Amy said, stepping up next to Lucy.

Amy had always been better at standing up to Carol than Lucy had been. Lucy admired her for it. She wished she could do that.

“Always with the temper, Amy,” Carol murmured.

“Always with the condescension, Mother,” Amy replied. “Do us all a favor and get out of here before we have to show you what real expertise looks like?”

Lucy shot Amy a look. She couldn’t claim that she was better than Carol or any other Rittenhouse Scholar.

“Sweet of you to offer, Amy, but I’m quite fine where I am, thank you,” Carol replied. “Let me know if you ever want to join our expedition, though, dear. I’d love to introduce you to these people—there’s Dr. Cahill, and young Nicholas Keynes, and—”

“Over my dead body,” Amy snarled.

She stormed off, her hands balled into fists—probably to avoid really doing something she’d regret.

Lucy hurried after her.

“Bitch,” Amy snapped. “Bitch, bitch, bitch!”

“I wish you wouldn’t say those things.”

“I don’t care, they’re true!”

Lucy sighed. “I know, she’s awful, and she—”

“You don’t get it,” Amy said, turning around. “You’re the favorite. You’ve always been the favorite. She still wants to actually have a relationship with you. She couldn’t care less about me, especially now that the truth’s out.”

“Amy, she’s just mad that you signed up for the war.”

“And made it months before they found out I was really a woman. I deserve some credit for that! I fought, I killed, I did my part, the same as any man!”

“I’m just saying, I’m not the favorite. You just…”

“I just stand up to her, that’s all. You’ve got to get some backbone, Lucy.” Amy took her hands. “I love you, and your smarts, and your sweet giving heart. But you give too much, Lucy, and people like Mom use it to walk all over you. This is our chance, don’t you see? This is our chance to show them, to show her, just what we can do. Especially what you can do.”

“Oh, Amy, I don’t know…”

Amy squeezed her hands. “Yes, you can, Lucy. You’re the expedition leader. This is your party. You’re in charge. You’re going to rub this in her face, you’ll see.”

Lucy sighed. She never understood the faith that Amy had in her, but she tried to be worthy of it. “I’ll try.”

Amy kissed her on the cheek. “That’s all I need. I’m going to take a walk—away from them. Before I say something I really can’t take back.”

She turned and walked off.

Lucy sighed.

“Family problems?”

She turned to see Mr. Logan setting his pack down on a nearby table and opening it up. It was full of guns, which he began to inspect.

He really was handsome, now that she could look at him properly and his hair was cut and his face was clean. “Of a sort,” she replied.

Wyatt sat down and started cleaning one of the smaller guns. He raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s not going to affect this expedition, is it?”

“I don’t see how that can be any of your business, Mr. Logan.”

He shrugged. “I’m your guide, but I’m also a soldier. I’m here to protect you, if it gets down to that.”

“I’m sure that I don’t need any protecting.”

Wyatt shook his head. “This place… where we’re going… it’s evil.”

There was something in his tone that made Lucy shiver. Wyatt grinned at her. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“The only thing that scares me, Mr. Logan, are your manners.”

“Still mad about that kiss, huh?” He was definitely teasing her.

“If you could call that a kiss,” Lucy shot back. “And honestly, did I miss something? Are we going into battle?”

“I told you, Miss Preston.” Wyatt spun the empty gun barrel. “There’s something under that sand.”

“Yes, and hopefully it’s the artifact I’m seeking.” Lucy grinned. She couldn’t help but share her knowledge a little. “A book, actually. Although Amy hopes there’s treasure.”

“You know, the Bedouin and the Tauregs believe that Hamunaptra is cursed,” Wyatt pointed out.

“I don’t believe in fairy tales and hokum, Mr. Logan. But I do believe one of the most famous books in history is buried there: The Book of Amun-Ra. Before it was erased from history, Hamunaptra was where all the most important and sacred of the rituals were conducted by Egypt’s priests and priestesses. This book is supposed to contain all the secret incantations of the Old Kingdom. It’s what first interested me in Egypt when I was a child. It’s why I came out here—sort of a life’s pursuit.”

Wyatt raised his eyebrows. “And the fact that it’s supposed to be made of solid gold is no never mind to you, right?”

Lucy felt her stomach do an odd flutter. “You know your history!”

“I know my treasure,” Wyatt replied, setting his gun down and picking up another.

Lucy bit her lip. She was curious, and it did seem that there was more to Mr. Logan than met the eye, and he was good looking, and… “By the way… why did you kiss me?”

Wyatt shrugged. “I don’t know. I was about to be hanged, seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Lucy glared at him. No, he was just as much of a scoundrel as she’d first thought. She got up and stormed off.

“What?” Wyatt asked, turning as she left. “What did I say?”

 

* * *

 

Flynn moved through the shadows as dusk fell along the boat.

The soldier, the one he’d been keeping an eye on the last three years… he’d spoken to him.

It wasn’t the first time. Wyatt Logan was a perceptive man. He seemed to know that there was someone watching him.

Flynn knew he shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t even have left Wyatt alive. He’d gone against direct orders and lied to the Head Medjai about it. It was stupid, but he couldn’t let the man die.

At first it was just because he’d seen Wyatt sacrifice himself to save his friend. But then it was because he’d struggled so hard to survive in the desert, his spirit refusing to give up. Then it was because of the way he’d heard the man shudder and cry out at night, reaching for someone—someone named Jess. And the wedding ring on the man’s finger.

Flynn knew well the pain of losing a wife.

He’d sent the Bedouins to him, and after that he’d just… kept checking in on him. Wyatt Logan was clearly a man lost. A man without purpose. Sometimes Flynn had thought, well, since he’d already been to Hamunaptra and clearly had nothing better to do with his life, perhaps they could recruit him?

Except look at how well their last recruiting session had went.

Which reminded him of the other complication to this mission.

Wyatt leading a group to Hamunaptra was bad enough, although Flynn’s sources informed him that Wyatt had next to no choice—it was that or the noose. But he had it from a reliable source that Miss Lucy Preston was an expert on Egyptology and was respectful of the ancient traditions. He was not so worried about her.

This other expedition, however, led by the man that Wyatt had sacrificed himself to save…

Flynn waited in the shadows until she passed by, then grabbed her, spinning her around and pinning her to the wall, his blade at her throat.

“Emma,” he growled.

“Flynn,” Emma Whitmore replied, sounding almost delighted. “Long time no see.”

“After you tried to kill me. After you betrayed the order.”

“You Medjai are all clinging to customs that are long dead,” Emma replied lazily.

Flynn dug the blade a little into her neck. “I think I’ll kill you.”

“Think of my children!” Emma protested.

“You don’t have any children.”

Emma shrugged, uncaring, as always, when caught in a lie. “Someday I might.”

Flynn pretended to think about it, then lowered the blade and grabbed her by the collar. “Goodbye, Emma.”

And he flung her over the side of the boat.

“Flynn!” Emma shouted, fury in her tone.

Flynn walked on.

He had a key to get.

 

* * *

 

Amy kicked uselessly at a barrel. How dare Mother come here, how dare she ruin everything for Lucy, she must’ve known that Lucy was planning this and was there just to fuck it all up like she enjoyed fucking everything up, she—

Amy froze.

There were wet footprints on the floorboards in front of her.

Amy’s blood ran cold. Someone had climbed onto the boat with them.

She hurried around the corner, and nearly decked Wyatt when he ran into her. “Whoa, steady,” he said, ducking and putting his hands up. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got company,” Amy said, “someone’s on the boat.”

Wyatt went very still. “They’ll be after my puzzle box.”

They said it at the same moment:

“Lucy!”

 

* * *

 

Rufus didn’t mean to get Jiya alone.

Okay, so it was fortuitous. But still. He didn’t plan it.

When he’d first clapped eyes on her, he had to be honest—he thought she was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen.

Now she was standing along the rail, resting her forearms on it and gazing out over the dark water.

“You can’t even see the banks in the dark,” she noted, her voice oddly solemn.

Rufus came to stand and lean on the rail next to her. “Something on your mind?” he asked.

Jiya tensed for a moment, then relaxed. “I was raised by Dr. Christopher,” she said. “The curator of the Cairo Museum. She and her… dear friend, Michelle, took me in.”

Rufus raised his eyebrows. “The lifelong kind of dear friend?” he asked.

Jiya shot him a look, like she was wondering if she could trust him. Then she nodded. “Yes.”

“I’ve known a few like that.” Rufus looked out over the water. “I don’t judge. Spent enough time being judged myself.”

Jiya nodded. “Well, they took me in after my father died. My mother wasn’t much of a mother to me after that. It broke her, to lose him. So Denise and Michelle, they became my parents.

“And I know that museum back to front, Mr. Carlin. I was raised in that building. I know every document. And I know what little that we have on Hamunaptra. And it’s an evil place. I know you’ll think that I’m stupid or girlish for it. But I have… what Denise always called an extra feeling. I know when danger’s near.”

She turned and looked at him directly, her eyes dark and glittering. “Danger’s very near us, Mr. Carlin. I can hear death knocking, echoing in my ears when I sleep. It knocks seven times.”

Rufus stared at her. He wasn’t a man who tended to believe in things like faith and superstition. But there was something in Jiya’s voice, something rough and raw, that made him believe her.

“Do you know who, Miss Marri?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Only that it knocks. Seven times. Seven is the number of magic, Mr. Carlin. The number for secrets.”

“Maybe you hear it knocking for a reason,” Rufus suggested. “So you can stop those deaths.”

Jiya shook her head and turned away from the water, leaning back against the rail. “I’ve never been able to stop anything. If I try it happens anyway. The lizards always die, the book still burns, my father still doesn’t come home.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Rufus asked. “Not that I mind. But I’m a stranger to you.”

Jiya looked at him again. She really was beautiful, Rufus thought. In an otherworldly way, almost. “Because I see you. You’ve the kindest of hearts.”

Rufus was glad that the darkness of the night hid his blush. Was it warm out here, or was it just him? “You don’t seem too bad yourself, Miss Marri.”

She smiled at him, some of the darkness in her eyes lightening.

Then her eyes widened, and she screamed.

Rufus turned to look over his shoulder.

The boat was engulfed in flames.

 

* * *

 

Lucy went over her notes again in the books she’d packed. She had to be prepared. She had to be the absolute best. She was going to show mother, show all of them.

Mother had mentioned Dr. Cahill. She knew him, of course she knew him. The man that her mother had slept with, cheated on their father with. Her biological father. The reason Amy hated Carol.

Nicholas Keynes—the newest member of the Rittenhouse Scholars. She’d heard about him after she’d gotten rejected yet again.

Lucy grit her teeth. Oh, she was going to show them all right, just like Amy said.

But she just couldn’t seem to concentrate.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time?

It had _seemed_ like a good idea at the time?

It had seemed like a _good idea_ at the time?

It had seemed like a good idea _at the time_?

Lucy glared at herself in the mirror. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, girl, it wasn’t that good of a kiss anyway.”

She set her book down and when she looked in the mirror again—

She tried to scream, but the man standing behind her wrapped his hand around her mouth, silencing her. “Miss Preston,” he said. He was tall, far too tall for her to fight, and there were two small tattoos under his eyes. He was wrapped all in black and dark blue, a burgundy sash at his hip along with a curved blade. His dark eyes gleamed, dangerous.

Lucy tried to keep her panic down. What was this psychopath doing in her room? What did he want? How did he know her name?

“The key,” the man told her. His hand lifted from her mouth but he grabbed her wrists, keeping her from fighting him.

“Key?” Lucy frowned at him in the mirror. “Key, what key?”

He stared right back, looking just as confused and frustrated as she did. “The key, the one that—”

“Lucy!” The door flung open and Wyatt and Amy burst in, Wyatt with a gun at the ready.

The man holding Lucy looked startled—and not just in an ‘ah-ha we’ve surprised you’ kind of way—there was something, Lucy thought, in the way that he looked at Wyatt…

And then the man grabbed the candle at his elbow and flung it at them.

Wyatt and Amy dodged and the candle landed neatly on the sofa—which immediately caught fire.

“Shit!” Wyatt yelled.

“You idiot!” Lucy yelled. She didn’t care who this man was, he’d just endangered them all. “What kind of stupid—”

She grabbed her book and started hitting him with it. “—idiotic kind of thief, or kidnapper, or whatever the hell—”

The man seemed completely astonished, to the point where he wasn’t even properly fighting back. Wyatt grabbed Lucy by the arm and yanked her back. “Come on!”

“But the map!” Lucy cried. It was on the table right by the couch—

“Relax, I’m the map,” Wyatt yelled, running with her. “It’s all up here.” He tapped his temple.

“Well that’s comforting,” Lucy shot back, not comforted in the slightest.

 

* * *

 

Amy grabbed the puzzle box and tried to dash after her sister, but the weird man in robes tackled her and she had to turn and kick him in the sternum, sending him flying.

They scrambled for the puzzle box, but the man was stronger than she was, and she wasn’t going to win this one, not unless…

She grabbed one of Lucy’s books—silently apologized to her sister—and smashed it over the man’s head.

Amy grabbed the puzzle box and stood up triumphantly. “And did I panic?” she asked. “I think not!”

The curtains caught fire from the couch.

Amy yelped, dodging the flames, and ended up—in one of her not-so-fine moments—tumbling overboard.

 

* * *

 

When Lucy and Wyatt emerged onto the deck, it seemed there were robed men everywhere. “What the hell is this?” Wyatt demanded, firing at will.

The fire was spreading fast, which made sense on a wooden boat. Lucy could see Rufus hurrying Jiya further along the deck. Smoke was making it hard to see.

“Amy?” she called. “Mother? Mr. Mason?”

Wyatt was reloading, his back against the wall. A gunshot hit the wall by his head. Then another, an inch closer. Then another. Then—

Lucy yanked Wyatt back out of the way, just as a bullet embedded itself in the wall where his head had been. Wyatt froze, eyes going wide.

“You’re welcome,” Lucy told him.

That was when the man from the room burst out and tackled Wyatt.

Lucy dove for cover as the two men started to scuffle. Wyatt was a capable fighter but this man seemed to know Wyatt’s every move, almost like he had fought Wyatt before, or watched him fight.

Odd, that.

Everyone was diving for the rail now, tossing themselves willingly overboard. “Miss Preston!” Lucy heard Rufus call as he helped Jiya off the boat. “Come on!”

Lucy looked back at the two scuffling men. The newcomer was on top of Wyatt now, and had him pinned. She couldn’t just leave Wyatt. He was her guide, and he was trying to protect her, even if he wasn’t exactly doing a bang-up job of it.

So she wrapped her arm around the man’s neck from behind, in a move she’d seen Amy do once or twice when her sister had gotten herself into another bar fight, and she yanked with all of her might.

The man grabbed her, growling, and seemed to be aiming to flip her over his head and onto her back, but then realized who she was. He switched course, rolling her over his back and shoulder and twisting her arm so that she landed neatly on her feet but disengaged from him.

That was when Wyatt decked him right in the face.

The man went reeling, and Wyatt grabbed Lucy. “Can you swim?”

“Well of course I can, if the occasion calls for it.”

“Trust me,” Wyatt said, hauling her up, “this calls for it!”

And he tossed her overboard.

Lucy struggled up to the surface, gasping as the cold water soaked her in seconds, desperately praying she wasn’t about to be eaten by a crocodile. “Amy!” she called. “Mr. Logan! Mr. Carlin! Jiya!”

She saw Wyatt up on the deck, struggling with the man, neither seeming to gain the upper hand. Then, with a splash, they tumbled over the deck—still entangled—and landed in the water.

The boat burned on, and began to sink.

 

* * *

 

They all struggled up onto the bank. “We’ve lost everything,” Lucy said. “All my books, my research…”

“My clothes…” Amy muttered.

At least they were all okay. Mason seemed to be nursing some bruises and Jiya was huddled in Rufus’s arms, leeching his warmth.

There was some grunting and yelling, and then Wyatt and the mysterious man came climbing out of the water, still tussling.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Lucy said, marching over to them. “That’s quite enough from both of you!”

Both men paused and stared at her.

Lucy planted her hands on her hips. “Who are you?” she demanded.

Wyatt reluctantly released the man, who gave Lucy a kind of half-bow. “Garcia Flynn,” he told her with a sardonic smile.

“Hey, Flynn!” someone yelled.

They all turned to see the redheaded woman from Carol’s party, standing on the opposite bank of the Nile.

“Looks to me like I’ve got all the horses!” the woman yelled.

“Hey, Emma!” Flynn yelled back. “Looks to me like you’re on the wrong side of the river!”

The woman, Emma, looked around, saw that he was right, and swore, very loudly and viciously.

Flynn turned back to them, smiling that cut-glass smile once again. “Miss Preston. I think it’s time we talked.”


	5. Chapter 5

Lucy didn’t know that it was possible to make a fire sullenly, but that sure was what Wyatt was doing.

Rufus was helping to hang up everyone’s clothes to dry while Jiya took a look at Mason’s bruises. Amy had her gun trained on their new party member.

Garcia Flynn.

“You said it was time we talked,” Lucy said. She wasn’t going to let this man intimidate her. “So, start talking.”

Flynn raised his eyebrows at her. Wyatt dropped his stack of firewood on the ground for emphasis.

Lucy looked up at him, as did Flynn. Wyatt immediately blushed. “Right. Just. Do as she says.”

Flynn looked back at Lucy. “I’m a part of a group called the Medjai.”

Lucy inhaled sharply. The Medjai had once been the sacred bodyguards of the pharaohs. But…

“You died out,” she said. “By the time Rome invaded you were long gone. Disbanded.”

“That’s what we wanted you to think,” Flynn replied. “We had more important missions that required we vanish from history.”

“And I’m supposed to just believe this at the drop of a hat?” Lucy asked. “A secret society exists and is interested in my expedition?”

“You’d better believe it,” Flynn replied with a growl. “Whether you like it or not, I’m actually here to protect you. All of you. Where you’re going—what you will uncover if you insist on digging at Hamunaptra—”

“Don’t tell me,” Lucy replied. “I’m going to get eaten by a demonic hippopotamus.”

Flynn glared at her. “Take this seriously, Lucy.”

She liked how he said her name with his accent—but she ignored that thought. “I am taking it a seriously as it deserves to be taken, Mr. Flynn. The supernatural is nothing but the product of fearful people who do not understand what is truly happening, or the tool of smarter men to subjugate others.”

“You’d better start believing in it, Lucy,” Flynn replied. “Before it destroys all of you.”

“And what exactly is it that we are supposed to be unearthing at Hamunaptra?” Lucy asked.

“Evil,” Flynn answered. “Pure evil.”

Wyatt gave Lucy an _I told you so_ look.

Lucy glared at both of them. “And you couldn’t possibly be more specific than that. I’m just supposed to trust the word of a man who attacked me and set our boat on fire.”

“I didn’t mean to do that last part.”

“Well you did. Our boat has sunk and it’s literally your fault. And now you expect me to just drop everything, my life’s work, on your word? After all of your scaremongering?”

Flynn looked pained. “I’m trying to save your lives.”

“We can save our own lives, if it comes to that,” Amy said, cocking her gun.

“I’ve no doubt you’re all brave fighters,” Flynn said dryly. “But this is like nothing any of you have fought before.”

He looked up at Wyatt. “You got just a taste of it, and it’s been haunting you ever since, hasn’t it Logan?”

Wyatt paled, then glared at Flynn. “You better be careful with your words, buddy. My trigger finger’s itchier than Miss Preston’s here.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt,” Flynn replied, in a tone that could have been mocking or flirtatious or neither. Lucy couldn’t tell.

She stood up. “I’m not abandoning my expedition We’re going to Hamunaptra, and if you want to stop us, you’ll have to kill us.”

Flynn stood up as well, towering over her. He looked thunderous. “Fine,” he growled. “But I’m coming with you.”

“What?” Wyatt yelped.

“Congratulations, Miss Preston,” Flynn told her. “You just got yourself another expedition member.”

 

* * *

 

That was one of the most uncomfortable nights of Wyatt’s life.

First off, they were all miserable and cold and hungry.

Second of all, Lucy was refusing to believe in this supernatural stuff—which, hey, normally Wyatt wouldn’t believe in it either, but he’d been there, he’d felt that place, the feeling of sheer… evil that had permeated it.

He’d found himself almost hoping while this Flynn guy was talking that he’d be able to accomplish what Wyatt hadn’t in scaring Lucy off the place.

No dice.

Third of all, there was Flynn himself.

The asshole had kicked Wyatt’s ass. Wyatt would deny it if asked, of course, but damn. He ached everywhere. He had bruises on top of bruises.

The fact that this insufferable prick who’d threatened Lucy, set the boat on fire—accidentally, but still—and attacked Wyatt, was now joining them on their expedition and had made it clear that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer…

And Lucy was letting him! She was just letting him!

“Better we keep him close to us,” she explained quietly when Wyatt had dragged her over to talk about it. “If we send him away he’s just going to come back again. And I’m not letting you shoot him, before you ask. We’re not killing a man in cold blood, not when he’s trying—stupidly, but trying—to protect us.”

“He’s a member of a cult.”

“The Medjai were good people. They were charged with protecting the lineage of Egypt’s rulers and were warriors against the minions of Set.”

“The who?”

“Set was Osiris’s brother, and god of disorder and violence. Point is, they were supposed to protect not just against assassins and invaders but supernatural threats. Flynn really believes he’s doing what’s right in threatening us.”

“Then why the hell do you want to keep him around?”

“Because of the other expedition.” Lucy took a deep breath. “My mom doesn’t play fair. It’ll be good to have another fighter on our side. And because, you know, I just like to have the bases covered. Just in case.”

Will huffed, but Lucy was right. It was better to have an enemy like Flynn close to keep an eye on, he’d be helpful in a pinch, and he didn’t trust this other expedition either, although he did trust Dave.

Fourth of all… or rather three point five of all…

It felt like Flynn was looking at him like he knew him.

Wyatt had his little. Uh. Discretions, while in the army. Who didn’t? But that was just—women weren’t always around and it was stressful and they could die the next day and—it wasn’t like he was attracted to men, or anything, not. Not really.

But as they all lay in the sand, curled up together—the women were all spooning to save warmth—he couldn’t get rid of the feeling of Flynn’s eyes on his back, watching him. It made his skin feel too tight, hot, and definitely made going to sleep difficult.

Thank God when it was finally morning and Wyatt and Flynn could get into an argument over which direction they had to go to meet a Bedouin tribe.

When they finally got there—Flynn was right, damn him—everyone disappeared to get changed into some decent clothes while Amy tried to bargain for some camels and Rufus tried to get them some more supplies.

“Seven!” Amy was yelling. “I just want seven, not the entire damn herd…”

Wyatt grinned at her. “We’d get them for free if you just offered them your sister.”

“Yes, tempting, isn’t it,” Amy grumbled.

“I’m ready!” Lucy said.

Wyatt turned and could feel his jaw trying to drop. He had to clench it to stop himself from looking like a complete idiot.

Lucy was now wearing this black silk number, with a veil to match to protect her from the sun, and gold embroidery all over. She looked… she looked…

“Yeah,” Wyatt blurted out, realizing Amy was still waiting for a response. “Tempting.”

Holy shit. He was screwed.

 

* * *

 

Flynn shook his head to get rid of the excess water as he stepped out from the water, quickly toweling off and pulling on his robes, which had been helpfully washed.

There was a strangled noise behind him, and he turned to see Wyatt Logan there.

He was staring at Flynn’s still-bare chest.

Flynn grinned. “My eyes are up here.”

Wyatt raised his eyes, glaring at him, his cheeks pink. “Just—your scars, that’s all.”

“Oh?” Flynn knew he had a lot of scars, yeah. Especially after the war. Knife wounds, bullets, broken bones… “I’m sure that’s all.”

Wyatt shoved past him and tugged his shirt up over his head. “My turn to use the water, asshole, so get out.”

“Maybe I’m enjoying the view.”

“Get. Out.”

Flynn finished dressing and grabbed his sword, tying it to his waist again. “Whatever you say, Logan.”

Making the guy flustered was starting to look like Flynn’s new favorite pastime.

He sauntered off, grinning to himself.

 

* * *

 

“I hate camels,” Mason muttered.

“You’re the one who chose to go with them to ‘protect your investment’,” Rufus replied.

Next to him, Jiya stifled her laughter.

“So,” Amy said, jerking her head at the three up ahead of them. “Five bucks says Wyatt punches Flynn by the end of the day.”

“I don’t know,” Jiya mused. Up ahead, Flynn said something and Wyatt blushed, glaring at him. “It could go another way.”

“You do realize they’re competing over Lucy, right,” Rufus said, deadpan.

Jiya winked at him and leaned in. “Extra feeling, remember?”

Rufus grinned at her, then frowned at the clouds of dust he saw up in the distance. “Um, Lucy?” he called.

Lucy turned, halting her camel. “Oh, no.”

“Mom,” Amy hissed, kicking her camel into high gear. “C’mon, we’ve got five hundred bucks riding on this!”

“We do?” Rufus asked. He looked at Jiya. “We do?”

“I said I have an extra feeling, not that I know everything,” Jiya replied.

Rufus grinned at her. “In that case, why don’t we have a little friendly wager of our own?”

Jiya leaned in. “Oh?”

“Well, you think it’s going to go the opposite of hitting, right?”

“Between Wyatt and Flynn? Yup.”

“So I’m going to bet that Wyatt makes a move on Lucy, before Flynn makes a move on either of them.”

“Ohhh you are _so_ on.”

They guided their camels up the ridge, overlooking a kind of wide, flat plane.

As they drew close, Rufus could see that Lucy, Wyatt, and Flynn were all arguing.

“I’m warning you, it’s my _job_ to warn you, that you should turn back now and leave before—”

“You’re welcome to leave whenever you want.”

“Would both of you please—”

“Experiencing problems?” Carol, the lead on the other expedition, asked as her group rode up to them.

“No,” said Lucy, Flynn, and Wyatt simultaneously. All three of them looked at one another, scandalized, as if them agreeing with one another on something was appalling.

Rufus smothered his smile. This was going to be fun.

 

* * *

 

Lucy looked out over the flat plane, aggressively ignoring the other expedition. “I don’t see anything.”

“Wait for it,” Wyatt told her. “We’re about to be shown the way.”

Flynn made a noise in the back of his throat. “It’s still not too late to back out.”

Lucy shot him a look. “Mr. Flynn, I’ll have you know right now that I don’t back out of anything.”

Flynn looked oddly like she’d thumped him over the head. But then Wyatt nudged her with his elbow. “Look.”

She turned… and gasped.

As the sun rose over the desert, a strange, shimmer of morning mist seemed to take a particular shape and float, and then settle, and then…

“Can you believe it?” she heard Nicholas whisper.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Mason admitted.

“Hamunaptra,” Dr. Cahill breathed.

Lucy’s breath caught in her throat. The city was appearing out of the desert like a mirage, but it was real, it was there, really there. And she was going to get to it.

Everyone seemed to have the thought at the same time. The two expeditions glared at each other, except for Dave, and then they were all taking off across the desert.

“Go, Lucy, go!” Amy yelled, whooping.

The horses that Carol’s expedition had were fast, but the camels were suited for this desert. They knew it like nothing else—and they started to take the lead.

Wyatt was on one side of her, Flynn on the other, although he didn’t seem to be having too much fun with it. Wyatt was whooping, and Lucy couldn’t help but laugh.

“Look out,” Flynn said, and he swerved, cutting off Emma as she tried to go after Lucy. Flynn and Emma got into a tussle, both of them trying to knock the other off without falling.

“Go on, Lucy!” Wyatt said, urging her on as he swerved to help Flynn out.

A moment later she heard someone fall, and heard Wyatt shout out, “serves you right!” and she guessed that Emma had been the one to take a tumble.

She hadn’t really been thinking about winning the bet, she’d just wanted to get in there ahead of her mother, but having an extra five hundred dollars would be helpful…

She gently urged her camel onward, leaning forward, trying to lessen the wind resistance. She could hear everyone yelling and hollering behind her, but she was far too focused on the city. It was right in front of her, rising out of the desert. The city she’d dreamed about for years.

Lucy’s camel crossed over the small, low wall that marked the entrance. Once it must have been a massive and stately wall with a gate, but now it was crumbling and miniscule.

The majesty was still there, though. Lucy could sense it, lying just underneath the sand.

“Yes!” Amy whooped.

“Go Lucy!” yelled Wyatt.

Lucy turned her camel around, watching as everyone came thundering in. “I do believe that’s five hundred to us,” Amy said gleefully, holding her hand out to Nicholas.

Wyatt rode up to her, grinning. “Fantastic.”

“We’re all going to be doomed,” Flynn muttered as he joined them.

“Do you ever say anything positive?” Lucy asked.

“I am positive that we are going to be doomed,” Flynn replied immediately.

Lucy sighed.

This was going to be quite the expedition, but possibly not for any of the reasons that she had expected.


	6. Chapter 6

Amy frowned, hands on her hips, glaring at Carol’s expedition. “They have twice as many workers as we do.”

“We have better workers,” Lucy replied, walking up and down amongst the statues while Wyatt followed her like a puppy dog.

Jiya was reading Rufus’s palm as they sat in the shade of a statue, telling him that he was going to have ten kids and die at the age of a hundred and ten, which was finally the moment when Rufus realized she was bullshitting him.

Mason was wiping at his forehead and moaning about how it wasn’t like this in England.

Flynn just stood, leaning against a pillar, glaring at everything.

Amy turned and cocked an eyebrow at her sister. “You sure about that?”

The only one of them who looked at all suited for this kind of thing was Flynn. Mason looked like a displaced member of the English nobility, Rufus looked like he was somehow, despite his skin color, going to get a terrible sunburn, and Jiya was peacefully sitting cross-legged and talking about Nefertiti and didn’t look like she’d ever picked up a shovel in her life.

Wyatt was pretty strong, Amy figured, but still. Seven people compared to Mom’s thirty and some-odd. Not exactly playing it fair.

“And is there any reason why we’re not trying to go through the main entrance the way they are?” Amy asked, gesturing over to where Carol was yelling in Egyptian at the workers while Baumgardner or whatever his name was gave her advice.

“Because we’re going after the Book of Amun Ra,” Lucy replied, stopping in front of a massive statue of Anubis. “These legs go deep underground. According to scholars, in one of his legs should be a secret compartment that holds the book.”

Flynn raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

Amy gestured at the mirrors. “And what are we supposed to be doing with these?”

“You’re meant to catch the sun with that,” Lucy replied.

Amy rolled her eyes but picked up a mirror. “Rufus, Mason, c’mere.”

According to Lucy’s instructions, they set up the mirrors in strategic places. Amy had no idea what it was supposed to be for, but she trusted Lucy.

While she, Mason, and Rufus set those up, Wyatt and Flynn dug a hole in the ground in front of Anubis.

“Watch it!” Wyatt snapped as Flynn got dirt on him again.

“Oops,” Flynn replied, deadpan.

Wyatt glared at him. Wyatt did a little too much glaring at Flynn—and looking at Flynn in general—for someone who was supposed to hate the guy.

If you asked Amy, anyway. Not that anybody asked her.

Deciding that digging with Flynn was obviously going to up his blood pressure too much, Wyatt walked over to where Lucy was helping to set up one of the mirrors. “So, uh, what’s this for?”

“It’s an ancient Egyptian trick,” Lucy said with a conspiratorial smile. “You’ll see.”

Amy huffed. They better be seeing some gold, that was all she was saying.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt went back to shoveling, and Lucy had to look down at the mirror to hide her blush. It was hard not to be won over when Wyatt kept shyly asking her questions about Ancient Egypt and archeology, and stammering when he came up to her.

He could be brash as hell, too, but that seemed to be mostly directed at Flynn now. There was a sweeter side to him opening up that Lucy was finding she rather liked.

She looked up again when she felt a shadow fall across her face and saw Flynn standing there, holding something out for her. “What’s this?”

“It’s something I borrowed off of your American brethren,” he told her.

Lucy took the soft leather pack and opened it to reveal a professional set of archeologist’s brushes and tools. It was obviously quite expensive, more than she could ever afford on her own.

“I thought you might be needing it,” Flynn said.

About ten feet away, Amy caught sight of them and her eyes went bug-eyed, then she quickly turned away.

Lucy frowned at the tools in front of her. Come to think of it, this did look rather like Mom’s pack…

She folded it up and looked at Flynn, who winked at her with a sly, conspiratorial smile. Lucy found herself smiling back as she tucked the pack away.

“We’re in!” Wyatt yelled, pulling back from the impressive pit that they’d made.

Flynn went over and helped Wyatt to set up a rope for them to swing down. For the first time, they weren’t focusing on sniping at each other, just silently working on the rope together. Lucy couldn’t really help but notice how good they both looked together, blond and brunet, nimble fingers passing the rope back and forth as they tied it off and then secured Wyatt to it so he could swing down.

“Hey, check for bugs,” Mason called. “I hate bugs.”

Wyatt rolled his eyes at Flynn, who gave him a soft _get on with it_ kick to the leg.

It made Lucy’s heart give an odd twist.

Then Wyatt was swinging down into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

“Wow,” Rufus said as he jumped down from the rope. “Dark, cold, and creepy. Just how I always pictured spending my vacation.”

“Well, where would you like to go?” Jiya asked, nimbly climbing down the rope after him.

Rufus grinned up at her and opened his arms. Jiya raised her eyebrows at him.

“It’s a bit of a jump,” he said.

Jiya rolled her eyes but jumped into his arms, letting him catch her and lower her onto the ground.

“You could’ve done that to Lucy,” Amy whispered conspiratorially to Wyatt.

“Don’t make me punch you again.”

Amy stuck her tongue out at him but sidled up to Lucy instead. “So, big sis, tell me, is this the famous treasure room? Because I’m seeing a suspicious lack of sparkly things.”

Mason sat down on a low stone table of some kind while Flynn was examining the hieroglyphs on the walls.

“You do realize,” Lucy said, sounding scandalized that her sister wasn’t appreciating this fully, “that we’re in a room that nobody’s been in for over three thousand years.”

“Okay, but is it a treasure room.”

“I can’t see a damn thing,” Mason said.

Lucy walked over to what looked like some kind of ancient disk. She dusted it off, then swung it, angling it. “And then there was…”

The mirror—and Wyatt realized with a jolt that was exactly what it was—caught the light from the mirrors up above them that they’d set up. The light bounced off to a mirror across the room that he hadn’t even seen, which bounced off to another mirror, and then another—until the room was filled with light.

“…light,” Flynn breathed, turning to look around them.

He looked like he was having a religious experience, almost, the way that he looked around him with wonder and disbelief. Wyatt had to swallow around his suddenly dry throat and looked away.

“That is a neat trick,” he told Lucy, grinning at her.

Lucy grinned back, pleased.

“Oh my God,” Jiya said, looking around. “This is a Sa-Net chamber.”

“A what?” Rufus asked.

“A preparation room,” Lucy explained.

“…preparation for what,” Rufus said, looking wary.

“For entering the afterlife,” Lucy said with a grin.

Flynn leaned in to Mason. “This is where they cut out the organs for the mummies,” he said.

Mason jumped up from the table he was sitting on, making disgusted noises.

Wyatt had to stifle his laughter. Flynn looked over at him and grinned, and Wyatt found himself grinning back before he stopped himself and remembered that Flynn was an asshole who was too attractive for his own good.

Um. Or. No. Just. Just an asshole.

They started through the chamber and down a narrow hallway, with only their torches to guide them. Wyatt had to admit, it was pretty creepy. For the first time he was glad that Flynn was there, taking the lead with Wyatt behind him. Amy, the only other one who could use a gun, was taking up the rear.

As they walked through the thick piles of sand, the oddest—and most disturbing—sound reached them. It was chittering, clickity, scuttling sound… almost like coins falling over and over one another but scuttling…

Wyatt looked at Flynn, who looked just as disturbed as Wyatt felt. Everyone else was looking around, trying to find the source of the noise.

“It’s in the walls,” Wyatt whispered, realizing.

Lucy shuddered and he took her hand, squeezing gently, steadying her. She shot him a grateful look and squeezed back.

Flynn got a sudden look of understanding on his face and leaned in to Wyatt. “Sounds like… bugs.”

Wyatt grinned at him and said, loudly, “he said bugs!”

“Bugs?” Mason yelped.

Wyatt bit down hard on his lip to hide his laughter. Flynn looked like he was doing the same, and Lucy gave them both chastising looks.

“C’mon,” Flynn murmured, jerking his head for them to move forward.

The hallway opened up into another chamber, this one not as large as the first, and also lacking mirrors.

What looked like a large, ornate foot-slash-coffin, with hieroglyphs in gold leaf on the side, dominated one side of the room. Must be the feet of Anubis that Lucy had been talking about.

They entered, and that was when they heard it—whispers.

Wyatt let go of Lucy’s hand to grab his gun. He saw Flynn draw his sword and Amy reach for her gun while Rufus shoved Jiya behind him and Mason put up his fists. It sounded unnatural, like the wind almost had a voice, and Wyatt suddenly had to close his eyes and keep himself from throwing up because he’d heard that once before, when he was last here, when the sandstorm had revealed that screaming face…

He felt someone’s small hand take his, and then a much larger hand settle on his shoulder, grounding him. He opened his eyes to see a concerned Lucy staring into his eyes, his hand firmly caught up in hers.

Flynn’s hand was on his shoulder, but the man wasn’t looking at him. He was looking down one of the other hallways.

“Breathe,” Flynn murmured.

As if on cue, Wyatt did.

They backed up against the stone foot, weapons drawn, ready. The voices were drawing closer, starting to take a more human shape but still echoing oddly…

Wyatt swallowed. He could do this. Whatever was around that corner, he could handle it.

He, Amy, and Flynn all jumped around the corner at the same moment, weapons up, just as Emma Whitmore, Nicholas Keynes, and Dave all jumped out as well, guns up.

Everyone froze.

Behind the three gunslingers, Carol Preston and Dr. Cahill were standing with their various diggers. There was about three seconds of very embarrassed silence.

“You scared the bejeezus out of us, Logan,” Dave admitted.

“Likewise,” Wyatt replied.

Everyone started to put away their weapons. Turned out, not even fully-grown adventurers were immune to the creepy atmosphere of this place.

“Lucy!” Carol Preston strode forward, glaring. “That’s my tool kit!”

“No it isn’t,” Flynn growled.

Everyone’s guns went up again.

“Perhaps you were mistaken,” Dr. Cahill said, obviously wanting to diffuse the tension.

Everyone’s guns slowly lowered.

“Well,” Lucy said briskly, “Apologies, everyone, but we have our work to be getting along with.”

“Push off,” Emma said. “This is our dig site.”

“We got here first,” Lucy replied, eyes narrowing in determination.

For the third time, guns—and Flynn’s sword—were quickly raised.

“This here’s our statue. Friend,” Nicholas said.

Wyatt glared. “I don’t see your name on it. Pal.”

“Guys, we can come to an agreement on this,” Dave said weakly. He’d never liked in-fighting. Ironic, since he was a damn good soldier.

“Yes, well,” Emma said smugly, “There’s only three of you, and twenty of me, so… your odds aren’t looking so great, Flynn.”

Wyatt looked at Flynn. He knew this woman?

Flynn looked like he wanted Emma to eat mud. By grinding his boot heel into her face. “I’ve had worse.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mason said.

Everyone looked at him for a beat. Mason coughed.

Lucy cleared her throat. “Oh, for goodness sake.”

Then she _stepped in between all the guns_.

Wyatt’s heart skipped a beat and Flynn’s did too, judging by the way he made an aborted attempt to grab her.

“Now, children,” Lucy said, gently lowering everybody’s guns. “If we are going to play together then we must learn how to share.”

She put a hand on Wyatt’s where he held his gun, and then her other hand on Flynn’s where he gripped his sword. “There are other places to dig.”

There was an odd conviction in her eyes, one that seemed to be telling him that she had a plan, something up her sleeve.

He lowered his gun, and saw Flynn do the same with his sword.

 _There are other places to dig_.

 

* * *

 

Ten minutes later, Flynn and Wyatt were hard at work bashing at the ceiling in the chamber down below—the chamber that Lucy had noticed when she’d seen a crack in the floor while everyone was arguing with their guns up.

Having Flynn around was nice, she decided. Two muscled men at her beck and call, she could get used to this.

“Enjoying the view?” Amy asked, grinning.

“You hush up.”

Over to the side, Rufus and Mason had set up an impromptu game of golf. Jiya was copying the hieroglyphs on the walls into her notebook for Dr. Christopher. “You mark my words, Lucy,” Jiya said. “She’s going to be pissed that she missed out on this.”

“Is this actually going to work?” Wyatt asked, still hacking away.

“If my calculations are correct,” Lucy replied.

“And they are,” Amy told her.

“We should come up right between his legs. And when those bastards go to sleep, we can find the secret compartment and get the book right from under their noses.”

Flynn grinned at her. “I like the way you think.”

Lucy folded her arms. “Aren’t you supposed to be telling us all the reasons why I shouldn’t do this?”

“I mean, I could, if you want me to.”

“Please don’t,” Wyatt groaned.

“Fore!” Mason yelled, hitting the rock he and Rufus were using as a golf ball.

The rock hit something, there was a creaking noise, and then there was an enormous crashing sound behind them.

Lucy screamed instinctively and felt someone—Wyatt—grab her, shielding her as Amy and Flynn both drew their weapons and Jiya jumped, dropping her notebook, and Rufus yelped.

The dust cleared and everyone stared.

A gigantic sarcophagus had just fallen out of the ceiling.


	7. Chapter 7

Nicholas grinned, crowbar in hand. “Finally, we’ve discovered it. The treasure of Seti I will be ours.”

“Careful!” Carol snapped, grabbing his wrist and stopping him from just jamming the thing into the foot of the statue. “These ancient pharaohs were no fools. We hired workers for a reason. Let them do the work.”

Emma smirked, watching them. Nicholas was a decent enough lay but he wasn’t nearly the genius that Carol and Benjamin seemed to think he was. Still, she’d put up with all manner of stupidity if it meant she’d finally get old Seti’s treasure. That had been why she’d joined the Medjai, to try and weasel out where Hamunaptra was and how to get there. But that stupid Head Medjai, the one they all bowed and scraped to, wouldn’t tell Emma a thing. When it became clear they were all far more obsessed with preventing some ridiculous ancient evil from rising, she’d gotten the hell out of dodge.

Seemed fortune favored the bold, though, because here she was. And these Rittenhouse scholars, arrogant and blue blood they might be, but they had the funds and they had the determination.

Nicholas stepped back out of the way and allowed the diggers to set their crowbars to it.

“Careful!” Carol chastised as the diggers set to work. “Careful, don’t damage the stone!”

The diggers wiggled their crowbars, slowly working the great slab of stone out inch by inch, until—

A pressured blast of acid sprang forth like a wave, hitting the four diggers square in the face. Carol gave a little shriek of surprise and jumped back. Dr. Cahill and Nicholas both shuddered. Dave’s jaw dropped open in horror, but then he was quick to spring into action.

“Water! Get water!” Dave yelled, yanking off his shirt and using it as a glove to try and wipe the acid out of the men’s eyes. “Don’t just stand there, hurry!”

Emma had to admit, her stomach churned a little seeing the acid do its work.

The pharaohs were no fools, indeed.

 

* * *

 

Jiya, Lucy, and Amy were recording the strange hieroglyphs on the sarcophagus that had fallen out of the tomb.

Well, Jiya and Amy were. Lucy had been pulled into a conversation with Wyatt on how mummification worked.

“So, they took your organs out, like your heart and your liver, and they wrapped it all up and mummified it and put it in separate jars. Oh! And do you know how they took out your brains?”

“Lucy, I don’t think the poor man wants to know this,” Amy commented.

Flynn smirked, leaning against the wall. He was pretty sure Wyatt would listen to Lucy recite the dictionary, so long as she kept talking.

“No, no, I don’t mind,” Wyatt said. He was looking at Lucy the way Flynn had seen men in the desert look at water.

And Lucy was looking right back at him in the same way.

Flynn’s stomach did a cruel little twist.

“Well, they take a poker, and they insert it up your nose, and then they scramble it around until your brains are all mush, and then they scrape your brains back out through the nose.”

Wyatt looked a little pale at that. He turned to Flynn. “Um, for the record? Don’t put me down for mummification.”

Flynn nodded. “I’ll be sure to put that in. What epitaph do you want on your gravestone? Since I’m apparently in charge of that?”

“‘He was surrounded by idiots’,” Wyatt replied dryly.

“This sarcophagus isn’t like a sarcophagus,” Jiya said.

Lucy turned to her. “What does that mean?”

Jiya looked up at her. “It’s built more like a prison. Look at how it’s reinforced.”

“It was buried at the base of Anubis,” Amy said. “Doesn’t that mean he or she was someone very important?”

Flynn’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t even thought about it at the time—there were several mummies buried here, several pharaohs in Seti’s line who had chosen this as their final resting place—but someone buried at the base of Anubis, in a prison-like coffin…

“Or he was someone who did something so heinous, they buried him by Anubis so the god himself could keep the person in the afterlife,” he said sharply.

Lucy walked over and read the inscription at the top of the sarcophagus. “He Who Shall Not Be Named.”

“Didn’t they do that to Hatshepsut?” Amy asked. “The female pharaoh?”

“Lucy,” Flynn hissed. “We need to leave this place and leave this sarcophagus alone.”

“All the superstitious stuff again?” Wyatt demanded. “C’mon, Flynn.”

“Don’t ‘c’mon Flynn’ me, Wyatt Logan, not when you have had a taste of the supernatural yourself and know the evil that can be found within.”

He knew he’d said too much when Wyatt’s eyes went wide, his body stiff. “H-how—”

“It looks like this opens with some kind of key,” Rufus said, pointing to a strange lowered portion of the sarcophagus, cut into an almost star-like shape.

And that was when they heard the screaming.

 

* * *

 

Lucy’s heart pounded as they raced back up to the first level of the city. What was happening? Was everyone all right? For a wild moment her mind conjured up a giant demon crocodile or something—but then she remembered herself. The supernatural was ridiculous. It was probably a large stone slab or something fell on some poor digger.

What they saw when they got up to the other expedition, though, was worse.

Wyatt, Flynn, Rufus and Mason all jumped in. Wyatt and Flynn clearly had experience with this sort of thing, and Rufus and Mason had no doubt seen worse in the prison. Amy clapped her hand over Lucy’s eyes.

But Lucy had seen enough already. She thought she might vomit.

“Oh gods,” Jiya blurted out. “Oh—oh gods.”

“Acid,” Dave Baumgardner said, his voice hoarse. “Fucking booby-trapped acid.”

“I told you that we ought to let the diggers do it,” Carol told Nicholas. “You would’ve been the idiot who got a face full of that if you hadn’t listened to me.”

“Mom!” Amy snapped, outraged, her hand falling from Lucy’s eyes.

Lucy clutched at Amy, feeling dizzy. It was so sickening. “Are they—are they alive?”

Wyatt, who was crouched down with one man, looked over at Flynn. Flynn shook his head and then looked up at Lucy. “I’m sorry.”

Jiya quietly went over to the men and began to cover their faces, murmuring in Arabic.

Flynn stood, offering a hand to help Wyatt to his feet. Lucy didn’t think that the two of them even noticed how they silently communicated and helped each other like that. As if they’d known one another for years instead of just a week or two.

“We should bury them,” Flynn said. “What dies here shouldn’t stay long above the ground. It’s offensive.”

Nicholas snorted. “Yeah? To whom?”

Flynn gave him such a stern look that Lucy could practically see Nicholas withering.

“Yes,” she agreed, to avoid another fight. The sarcophagus could wait until the morning. Flynn hadn’t seemed too keen about it anyway. “Let’s take care of these poor men.”

She shivered. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was walking over her grave.

 

* * *

 

“Well, that was fun,” Wyatt said sarcastically as he plopped himself down next to Lucy in front of the fire. Jiya was still saying prayers for the dead over at the fresh graves, and Mason and Amy were already asleep. “Ancient booby traps, better be on the lookout for those from now on.”

“Maybe this place really is cursed,” Rufus said.

A strong wind blew through, making the fire sputter.

Wyatt looked at Rufus. Rufus looked at Wyatt.

Flynn, the bastard, said nothing and just added more wood to the fire.

“Oh for crying out loud,” Lucy said. “You two are ridiculous. There’s nothing going on here. The ancient Egyptians were clever people, and for them the journey into the afterlife was the most important thing. They would do anything to protect their tombs. Grave robbing was a huge business in those days. It’s awful but it’s not surprising and it’s not the result of some curse.”

“So you do not believe in the supernatural, Lucy Preston?” Flynn asked, sitting on her other side.

“No. I believe that if I can see it and I can touch it, then it’s real.”

Wyatt grinned. “Is this real enough for you?” He held up the bottle of Glenlivet that Dave had gifted him. Apparently it was a gift from Dr. Cahill, but Dave didn’t drink anymore, not since the war.

“Oh hell yes,” Rufus said. “Good thing Mason’s asleep, he’d take the whole thing from you.”

And that was how they ended up getting wildly, fantastically drunk.

“Get him, Lucy!” Rufus said, cheering Lucy on as Wyatt got her hands up into position.

“It’s not fair, he’s like…” Lucy eyed Flynn, who was standing there and protesting that he was not about to even pretend to hit her. “…he’s like a tree.”

 _Then call me a squirrel_ , Wyatt thought.

Uh. What.

Lucy gave him an odd look. “What did you just say?”

Shit shit shit shit _shit_ —

“I said, um, so, plant your feet.”

“No you said something about—”

“Widen your stance, and don’t, that’s not how you make a fist…”

“Is _that_ how they taught you to make a fist? Fuck’s sake, Wyatt, no wonder…”

“I can hit for myself, thank you,” Lucy said, shaking them both off. “Amy taught me.”

Flynn smirked at her, and then held up his palm. “Then come at me, tiger.”

Lucy flung her arm at Flynn and missed spectacularly, falling sideways. Wyatt caught her before she could hit the ground.

“I think maybe you’ve had enough,” Wyatt told her, trying to ignore the warmth of her, the way she fit against him, in his arms.

Rufus laughed so hard he fell off the log he was sitting on. “My mom can hit better than that, Lucy.”

“Unlike my sister, sir, I know how to hold my liquor,” Lucy replied proudly.

Wyatt set her down onto the log. “I’m sure you do. Here.” He grinned up at Flynn. He didn’t know where this reckless, hot molten feeling in his stomach was coming from—probably the drink—but for once he didn’t want to ignore it or stuff it down. He wanted to follow it. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

“Hit me like you mean it, soldier boy,” Flynn said. His body was a little looser now, not tense and poised like a lion in a cage, and his smile—it was so much looser and wider than Wyatt had expected.

Wyatt pulled back and dealt a right hook, swinging with all of his might.

Flynn caught his fist easily, diverting Wyatt’s momentum, turning him so that Wyatt was pressed back up against Flynn’s chest, Flynn’s hand an iron band around his wrist.

“And that, Miss Lucy,” Flynn said, “is how you divert someone who’s coming to punch you.”

Every inch of Wyatt burned where Flynn was touching him. He wanted to press into it. He wanted to pull away.

He ended up standing there like an idiot.

Lucy jumped up again, grabbing Flynn’s hands so that he let go of Wyatt. “Teach me.”

Standing in between Lucy and Flynn like this was dangerous for all kinds of reasons. Wyatt ducked out of the way, right as Flynn said, “Why the sudden interest in fighting?”

Wyatt threw a blanket over the now-snoring Rufus. “You’re not planning on becoming a gunslinger, are you?” he teased.

A look of adorable consternation crossed over Lucy’s face. “Now, now listen Wyatt Logan. I… I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure seeker or a gun fighter, but I am proud of what I am.”

“And what is that?” Flynn asked. He sounded completely charmed.

“I,” Lucy announced proudly, “am a historian!”

Then she nearly fell down and Flynn had to catch her again.

“You are so very drunk,” Wyatt said laughing, helping Flynn to set her down on a blanket. “I think it’s bed time.”

“But—but no.” Lucy pouted, looking from one to the other. “I haven’t gotten to kiss either of you yet.”

Wyatt’s heart gave a lurch and his breath froze in his chest.

Flynn looked similarly stricken. “Um. How about we save any ideas for when you’re not spectacularly drunk, all right?” he said, drawing the blanket around Lucy.

Lucy sighed. “Fine, be responsible. See if I care.”

Flynn gave Wyatt a _some help you are_ look. Wyatt glared at him, trying to ignore how much he wanted to give Lucy what she wanted, how he would kiss her soft and gentle, trying to ignore the part of him that wanted to see Flynn kiss Lucy, watch how he did it, wondering what it would feel like if…

“I think I should go to bed too,” Wyatt said. He knew he sounded abrupt, but how the hell did you not make it awkward after one of you said something like that?

Flynn looked like he might say something else, but instead he just rubbed at the back of his neck. “Ah. Yes. Right. Good idea.”

Wyatt forced himself not to look back as he went over to his bedroll. Flynn didn’t—he wouldn’t—they were all drunk, that was all.

God, he hoped none of them remembered this in the morning.

 

* * *

 

Rufus woke up cold.

He sat up a little and looked around. Dammit, had those three gone to bed without telling him? Were they just letting him lie there?

Some friends. At least they’d thrown a blanket on him.

“You’re awake?” Jiya said softly.

Rufus turned to see her walking back to them after praying among the graves. “You all good?” he asked. “Sent them properly into the afterlife?”

“I hope so.” Jiya gave him a sad smile.

Then, to his surprise, she plopped down next to him. “You don’t mind, do you? It keeps us warm.”

It was surprisingly cold in the desert. Rufus lifted the blanket so that Jiya could curl into his chest and then tentatively, unsure if he was presuming too much, draped his arm around her waist.

Jiya gave a happy sigh and just burrowed in further against him. “I have nightmares,” she warned him.

“Seven will die, I remember.” Rufus could feel how warm and soft she was, and smell the sandalwood in her hair, the faint scent of incense that clung to her skin. “You sure those four diggers don’t count?”

“No,” Jiya replied in a whisper. “It feels different.”

“Well, I’ll wake you up. And talk to you. I’ve been told I have a soothing voice.” Rufus winced, wanting to smack himself. Soothing voice? Really?

“I’d like that,” Jiya replied. “Tell me a story?”

Rufus hid his smile in her hair. “My mom used to tell me this one. Once, there was a farmboy, who lived with his aunt and uncle in the desert…”

Jiya fell asleep about twenty minutes in, but she didn’t stir all night.

Not that Rufus was staying up to check on her. Or anything. Haha.

…yeah he was screwed.


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning, Carol led her team back down to the statue of Anubis. “Find anything?” she asked Lucy.

Lucy knew that tone of voice. It was the ‘I’m expecting you to disappoint me but I’m ready to be surprised’ tone.

“A sarcophagus, as a matter of fact,” Lucy replied. “We’re quite excited, I think he might be one of the pharaohs who was buried here.”

Carol’s face got a little sour. “Well. I’m sure we’ll see about that. You know if you’d like, Lucy, you’re welcome to join forces with us. There are some fascinating…”

“No, thank you,” Amy said, coming up from behind to stand by Lucy’s side. “Lucy and I are perfectly capable of handling an expedition on our own.”

“Getting to know other Rittenhouse scholars when she wishes to join the fellowship is—”

“Yeah but is that society really all it’s cracked up to be?” Amy asked. “Lucy’s doing great on her own, in fact I think I hear Wyatt calling you? Lucy?”

Wyatt was doing no such thing but Amy sent a glare his way and he quickly elbowed Flynn, who elbowed him back, which made Wyatt yell “Lucy!” as if Lucy could somehow stop Flynn from being a little shit.

“Oh, look, he is calling me,” Lucy said, smiling at her mother. “We’ll just be on our way.”

“I’m trying to help you,” Carol protested. “If you would just stop with this sudden streak of independence—you’re not ready, Lucy.”

“She’s been ready for years,” Amy said loyally. “She can lead an expedition. You’re the one who wants her tied to your skirts still.”

“C’mon, Amy,” Lucy whispered, tugging her sister away. It wasn’t worth it to argue with Mom. She’d just have to show her what she was capable of.

She rejoined the others and led them back down into the darkness of the sunken city. Luckily neither Flynn nor Wyatt had mentioned what had happened last night.

Had she really admitted, out loud, that she wanted to kiss both of them?

Either they had forgotten or were doing a damn good job of hiding it because neither one was treating her any differently.

Wyatt had a hand out to help her down into the tomb, and Flynn took point again, although what he thought he was protecting her from, she still didn’t know.

“I’m going to go further down into the tunnels,” Jiya said. “See if I can get a proper map or layout of this whole place.”

“I’ll go with her,” Rufus said quickly.

Lucy caught Amy’s smirk and grinned at her as Rufus and Jiya walked off further into the city, swallowed quickly by darkness.

“They’re going to just go and make out, aren’t they,” Wyatt said, sounding like he’d just now realized that there might be something romantic going on between those two.

“Jiya’s more responsible than that,” Flynn replied, leaning against a wall. “She’ll get some work done and then make out with him.”

He gave Lucy a little smile and a wink as he said it, and Lucy tried desperately to ignore the way that made her knees weak.

She wasn’t sure if she wished that she’d been less drunk last night so that she hadn’t said anything, or less drunk so that she could’ve been coherent enough to act on what she wanted. On the one hand, sand everywhere and people only a few feet away.

On the other hand, Flynn’s stupidly handsome face in her hands, his body under hers while she straddled his lap. Wyatt’s soft mouth and his capable hands sliding over her hips.

Lucy shook herself. This was not the time to be thinking about things like that. She had an expedition to lead and a point to make to her mother.

“If nobody minds,” Mason said, “I’ll just be taking a nap.”

“You could do that up there,” Wyatt pointed out.

“In the sun? Instead of in this nice, cool, dark room?” Mason replied, lying down on a slap.

“…point taken.”

“Lucy.” Flynn walked over to her. “I really don’t think you should open this sarcophagus.”

“Why not?” Lucy tried to ignore the way he gently took her wrist and pulled her aside.

“He Who Must Not Be Named? That doesn’t concern you at all? The Egyptians didn’t take the erasing of someone’s name lightly. To erase someone’s name was to erase their existence, according to them. This man was truly terrible.”

“They also tried to erase one pharaoh for being a woman and another for trying to make the culture monotheistic. Depending on how you look at it, neither of those things are all that bad. Yet they were heinous to the Egyptians.”

Flynn shook his head. “My order would never allow it.”

“Your order. The mysterious one that you won’t tell me about but is the reason you’re all doom and gloom.”

“Yup.”

“Flynn, I’m a historian. This is what I do. And unless you tell me what the danger is, I can’t let you stop me.” Not when this was so important to her. Not when she had to be able to hold her head up high in front of her mother.

Flynn scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “I’m bound by sacred oaths, Lucy, I can’t break those lightly.”

“And you’re asking me to just trust you without any explanation or evidence?”

Flynn sighed. “Yes.”

“I can’t do that, Flynn.”

He glared at her. She glared right back. Wyatt said, uncomfortably, “Um, anything I can help w—”

“No,” she and Flynn barked at the same time.

“Okay,” Wyatt said, taking a step back.

“I was supposed to kill you,” Flynn pointed out. “Or at least leave you stranded. But I joined you, and I’ve let you all come this far, against my orders.”

“That’s a real threat,” Lucy said, anger bubbling up in her. “Mr. Big Scary Desert Bandit, as if that could intimidate me. You expect me to just bow down before your orders? I hate to disappoint you, but—”

“Okay she’s got a point but could we maybe not—” Wyatt started, jumping in.

“You’ve felt the evil in this place,” Flynn said, turning to Wyatt, his jaw clenched. “How can you let her do this when you know, when you _feel_ —”

“The guy in there is dead, Flynn, it’s not like—”

“Wait, how do you know I felt anyth—”

“My people have guarded this place from outsiders like you for hundreds of years but oh no, no, you just had to come here anyway, and I was a sucker—”

“And why were you a sucker, exactly? Care to expla—”

“Stop distracting him Lucy answer the goddamn question Flynn how do you—were you there when—”

“Oh hey!” Amy said, grinning down at the sarcophagus. “Look at that, my puzzle box opened it!”

Everyone turned and stared.

Sure enough, Amy had opened the puzzle box, fitted it into the depression in the sarcophagus, and spun it open.

“Huh,” Wyatt said. “I’ll be damned.”

“Poor, poor choice of words,” Flynn muttered.

 

* * *

 

Carol instructed the diggers as they slowly lifted a box out of the hidden chamber in Anubis’s legs.

Emma sighed. There was nothing exciting going on around here.

“I’m going to check on the men upstairs, make sure they’re not lazing around,” she told Carol.

Carol nodded absently, not even looking at her.

Seriously, rich people. Emma couldn’t wait until she was rich and could get away with ignoring everyone like that.

She didn’t go upstairs, though—she started exploring the rest of the area. If she could find that fabled treasure room first… well, there’d be literally no way of proving that she’d lifted a few pieces, would there?

 

* * *

 

Jiya finished making some notes in her journal. “Thanks for holding the torch.”

“Of course.” Rufus had genuinely enjoyed listening to Jiya explain all the hieroglyphs and what they meant.

She pointed to a sconce in the wall. “You can set it there, if you’d like.”

Rufus didn’t see why, but he also didn’t see why not, so he set the torch up in there.

Jiya put her notebook away. “So, how long am I going to have to keep finding excuses for us to be up close and personal before you kiss me, Rufus Carlin?”

“Uh…” Rufus was pretty sure Jiya was able to hear his frantic heartbeat. “I didn’t want to make any assumptions.”

Jiya grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him right up against her. “Start assuming.”

Then she kissed him.

Holy _shit_.

Rufus’s hands settled at Jiya’s hips, and he pulled away slightly. “Can I state, for the record, that you are a very good kisser?”

“I’m flattered. For the record, you’re not so bad yourself.”

After that, well, Rufus didn’t see much reason to keep talking about kissing when they could be doing the real thing.

 

* * *

 

Carol watched as the diggers set down the large ornate box. Oh, it was beautiful. Who knew was value was contained inside?

She frowned, reading the hieroglyphs. “Interesting. It says that there’s a curse on this chest.”

“You don’t really believe in all that hokum, do you?” Benjamin asked her.

Carol rolled her eyes. Benjamin had been so charismatic to her as a younger woman. Full of charm and intelligence. Now he was a colleague that she only barely put up with. “I don’t believe in the supernatural but I do believe in booby traps.”

She felt along the lid of the box, testing, seeing if there was anything, a hidden catch or something that would spray her with acid like those men yesterday.

Nothing.

“What does it say exactly?” Mr. Baumgardner asked.

“The translation is basically, ‘death will come on swift wings to whosoever opens this chest’,” Carol explained.

A strange wind blew through the chamber, a wind that almost seemed to sound like a hungry voice.

The remaining diggers all screamed and fled.

Carol sighed. Finding good, solid workers was so difficult these days. Honestly. One man opens a tomb and dies of a mosquito bite and suddenly everyone’s convinced curses were real again.

Nicholas crouched down to look at the hieroglyphs with her. “I’ve never read anything like this before. It says, ‘there is one, the undead, who if brought back to life bound by sacred law to consummate this curse’.” He frowned. “That doesn’t sound like any other curses I’ve read in tombs.”

“It is unusual,” Carol acknowledged. “It will make an excellent little curiosity when we return.”

“Guess we shouldn’t bring anyone back from the dead then, huh?” Mr. Baumgardner joked.

The others all just stared at him until he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Nicholas was still reading. “‘He will kill all who open this chest and assimilate their organs and fluids. And in so doing he will regenerate and will no longer be the undead but a plague upon this earth’. What is this biblical crap?”

“Move aside, Mr. Keynes.” Carol grabbed the edges of the lid. “Let’s open this up, shall we?”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, I’ve dreamt about this since I was a little girl,” Lucy said as Amy and Wyatt hefted the lid off the sarcophagus.

“You dream about dead guys?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn was glaring, his arms folded, and giving off a general air of disapproval.

“I don’t suppose it concerns you that there are no sacred spells on the sarcophagus?” Flynn called.

Lucy ignored him.

“On three,” Wyatt told Amy. “One, two…”

On three, they lifted the lid—and the mummy practically popped out at them.

Lucy screamed, jumping back right into Flynn’s arms, since in response he had jumped forward, blade half drawn to attack whatever had popped out. Wyatt yelped and then blushed, furious with himself for being so startled. Amy gagged at the smell.

“Are these…” Wyatt was no expert, but this mummy didn’t look right. No bandages, for one thing. And his skin wasn’t all dried out the way it should get in a desert environment. Instead he looked… “I mean, are they supposed to look like that? He still looks, uh… juicy.”

“I’ve never seen a mummy look like this before,” Lucy admitted, allowing Flynn to help her back to her feet. “It honestly looks like he’s still decomposing.”

“I told you,” Flynn said, leaning into Wyatt and speaking almost directly into his ear. “Not a good idea.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Wyatt shot back, ignoring the way his stomach tightened with Flynn so close to him.

Flynn shrugged. “Maybe I know you better than you think,” he said, and fuck if the way he practically whispered it, his eyes dark and gaze heavy on Wyatt, didn’t make Wyatt wonder what would happen next if they were alone…

Something of what he was thinking must’ve shown on his face, because Flynn’s own face faltered in surprise.

Oh, great. He got a massively inappropriate crush on the guy and of course Flynn wasn’t interested.

“Lucy?” Amy crouched down, picking up what looked like shells off the ground. “Are these… these look like the shells of some kind of beetle.”

Lucy crouched down. Over her shoulder, Wyatt could see the strange blue-colored shells, the creatures inside long rotted away. “What are those?”

“A rare breed of scarab beetle,” Flynn intoned. “They eat flesh instead of dung. Bred to devour the worst offenders to the seat of Upper and Lower Egypt.”

Flynn reached down, taking Lucy by the arm again and bringing her to standing. He kept a hold of her arm but put his other hand on Wyatt’s shoulder.

“Listen to me. This man endured the Hom Dai.”

Lucy inhaled sharply. “That’s a myth. It was so horrible that nobody ever used it.”

“They did, once,” Flynn hissed. “And we have been paying the price for it ever since.”

“Lucy?” Amy’s voice was tentative. “I—I think this man was buried alive.”

Wyatt’s blood went cold. “What makes you think that?”

Amy pointed to the inside of the wooden lid of the inner sarcophagus. There, someone had, painfully and laboriously, scratched out a message into the wood using their fingernails.

Lucy turned, seeing the symbols.

“What does it mean?” Amy asked, suddenly sounding scared, like a younger sister instead of the spitfire Wyatt had always seen before.

Lucy cleared her throat. “It says, ‘death is only the beginning’.”

“Exactly,” Flynn growled. “Listen to me, Lucy. This man was condemned in this life and the next. Seal up this sarcophagus and leave it. I promise, I won’t interfere if you want to explore the rest of the city. Take whatever treasure you want. But do not leave this man where he might roam loose.”

“Roam loose?” Wyatt hissed. What the fuck did that mean?

A shadow passed across Flynn’s face, his muscles going tight. “Seal up the sarcophagus and I promise, I will explain everything.”

Wyatt could hear the desperate conviction in the man’s voice. He’d heard that tone in men before during the war, and it wasn’t the tone of someone who was lying or tricking. It was the voice of someone with absolutely nothing left to lose, who was too desperate for falsehoods.

Lucy seemed to hear it too. “Seal it back up,” she instructed. “Amy.”

“Yes.” Amy stood up, looking only too happy to shove the guy back in his coffin.

“Mason?” Lucy called. “Can you fetch Rufus and Jiya, let them know we’ve gone up topside? We’ll reconvene tomorrow and use Jiya’s map to navigate the rest of the city.”

“We have to hide the sarcophagus again,” Flynn warned.

“In the morning,” Lucy replied. “We’ll seal it up for now, you’ll explain, and when we’re fresh we can hide it somewhere. It fell out of the ceiling, we can’t very well put it back where we found it.”

Flynn seemed to take that for the compromise that it was and nodded, once, at Lucy. It was as good as saying he’d follow her.

Lucy ducked her head down but Wyatt could still see her pleased smile. “All right then. Wyatt?”

Flynn gave Wyatt’s shoulder a squeeze before dropping his hand.

A friendly squeeze, Wyatt reminded himself. Flynn was interested in Lucy, any fool could see that. But Wyatt had thought—after all Lucy, who didn’t seem to remember much, had said _either of you_ —he’d thought maybe Flynn thought the same as her but…

Thank God Flynn hadn’t heard Wyatt last night—the idiotic things he’d thought and said.

Anyway.

They had more important things to think about. Like what the hell Flynn was finally going to tell them.

Oh, and sealing up this mummy.

 

* * *

 

Carol slowly unwrapped the old linen from around the package.

“I think this side panel is loose,” Nicholas noted.

“There might be another compartment, these things often had more than one,” Benjamin said.

Carol lifted back the last piece of linen and gasped. But—it was supposed to be at the base of Horus. “Ben.”

“Yes?”

Benjamin Cahill’s eyes went wide when he saw what she was looking at. “The Book of the Dead.”

“I thought that was just a rumor,” Nicholas said.

There was the normal Egyptian book of the dead, but this one, a book with its spells written down not on papyrus but stone so that it might be better preserved, was for the priests only. It was a series of spells to create or protect against the undead, spells to summon even Anubis himself, some claimed. Only the most powerful of priests could use it, especially when paired with the Book of Life, supposedly carved out of solid gold.

Carol lifted the book out carefully. She could feel tears springing into her eyes. This was the biggest find of her career. It seemed as though the book had some kind of… odd mechanism that was required to open it…

“Ouch!” Nicholas yelped, drawing his hand away as a side panel fell down off the box.

Inside were four milky white jars, each with the head of a different god.

Jars holding someone’s internal organs.

“So…” Mr. Baumgardner shifted his feet. “What does this mean?”

“It means, sir, that you are getting paid handsomely,” Carol replied. “And that’s all you need concern yourself with.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn was sitting next to Wyatt by the campfire, Rufus and Jiya cuddled to one side, Mason on a log near them. Lucy was off using the facilities, and Amy was arguing with their mother over something.

He wasn't sure what to do about Wyatt. If the flash of heat he thought he'd seen in the man's gaze in the ruined city was actually there, or if it had just been Flynn's own hopeful imagination. It had taken him aback when he'd seen it, convinced up until then that Wyatt was stubbornly straight. But now...

Emma sauntered over, Wyatt’s old army friend with her. “Well, well, well, Flynn,” she said, plopping herself down next to him. “I hear you got yourself a nice juicy mummy.”

“I’m back!” Lucy announced.

“You’re in her seat,” Flynn said to Emma.

Emma didn’t move.

Flynn bared his teeth. “ _Now_.”

Emma jumped up, glaring at him. “If you dry that sucker out you can use him for firewood.”

Wyatt flipped her off.

Emma stalked away. Dave looked sheepish. “Mind if I join?”

Flynn looked at Wyatt, who shrugged. “Yeah, of course.”

Lucy sat down where Emma had been. Flynn noticed how she shivered. “If you want, you can switch with me. More body heat.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

They changed so that Lucy was now in between him and Wyatt. Flynn didn’t fail to notice how Wyatt’s cheeks went pink. His crush on Lucy was ridiculous.

Flynn couldn’t help but remember what Lucy had said while drunk last night. He would never have acted on anything, not while she was intoxicated, but just knowing that she wanted both of them…

He glanced at Wyatt. Meeting Lucy was like being hit in the face with an axe. He knew almost the moment he saw her. But Wyatt…

He’d tailed the man for three years, checking up on him. And it wasn’t out of pure admiration or a sense of guilt. It was time to face up to what he hadn’t been acknowledging all that time. That underneath the hotheaded exterior, the shield of ‘oh I have this under control’ attitude that Wyatt threw up, there was a soft, tentative, achingly lonely person.

A person that Flynn would do anything to protect.

But while Lucy had made her position clear, even if it had taken alcohol to get her to voice it, Wyatt—Flynn couldn’t figure Wyatt out. He wasn’t sure, if he offered, if Wyatt would want something more.

“So,” Lucy said. “You said that you would tell us everything.”

Flynn sighed. “All right. But I’m sure you’ll understand if I ask you not to share this with your mother or the other camp.”

Wyatt looked over at Dave, who nodded. “My lips are sealed.”

“This is sacred information,” Flynn warned. “I’m forbidden to share it. But I hope that my leader will forgive me, given the circumstances.”

He glanced over at Jiya. She was so young, but already carried so much, her eyes dark with the souls of ages.

She gave him a slight nod.

Flynn cleared his throat. “The Hom Dai was a punishment that was to be meted out only after the most profane of crimes. Many times pharaohs came close to ordering it carried out, but each time the order, my order, the Medjai, were able to stay the pharaoh’s hand.

“We are warrior priests, tasked with fighting the supernatural, and we knew that if a person was killed using the Hom Dai, their life force would become so hateful, so full of corruption and pain, that if they were ever brought back to life they would become a plague. They would carry with them the ten plagues of Egypt, and be a walking nightmare.

“But once there was a pharaoh who at last ordered the Hom Dai and would not be persuaded otherwise. His father, Seti I, had been murdered by his own high priest, and by his mistress. They had been having an affair behind the pharaoh’s back and when he found out, they killed him.

“To add to this profanity, the mistress of the pharaoh killed herself to escape punishment. We at first believed that she acted alone, but we learned the full story when the high priest took her body here, to Hamunaptra, in the hopes of bringing her back to life. We stopped him.

“Enraged and grieving, Seti I’s son, the new pharaoh, ordered the Hom Dai performed on the high priest. Imhotep was his name. We pleaded with him not to do it, but the pharaoh was set on nothing less than the greatest revenge.

“Since then we have kept watch, knowing that someday, when people believed the old spells to be nothing but silly words on a page, someone would raise Imhotep from the dead. And he was no ordinary man. He was a high priest, blessed with great powers. If he arose he would not only walk upon this earth as a monster, he would regain his powers and soon rule over all the earth.”

He looked at Wyatt. “That was the evil you felt when you were here three years ago. The voice you heard on the winds. It was Imhotep. Trapped in a purgatory, he waits for his moment.”

Wyatt stared at him, pale, his blue eyes wide. He was struggling desperately to keep his fear under control, Flynn could tell by the way his throat worked and his hands were clenched around his knees. “You were there. You saw.”

“I was dispatched by our Head Medjai to see what happened to your legion.”

“You let me wander out into the desert?” Wyatt demanded, incredulous. “I nearly died!”

“And who do you think send the Bedouin tribe that found you, saved your life?” Flynn replied.

Wyatt’s mouth snapped shut.

“I was supposed to kill you,” Flynn growled. “I went against my leader, the one to whom I bound myself, in letting you live.”

There was a moment of tense silence. Flynn had no idea what he was seeing in Wyatt's eyes. Anger? Lust? Confusion? Affection? All four? Or none?

“You keep saying ‘we’,” Lucy mentioned. “Were you—you weren’t there, were you?”

Flynn could feel Jiya’s eyes on him. “No. I wasn’t. I meant we only in the… the sense that it was my order.”

Lucy nodded, her face solemn. “We’ll find a way to hide the sarcophagus tomorrow,” she promised.

Wyatt stalked off, his face unreadable. Dave hurried after him, probably to ask about that day, since Dave had been there as well. Jiya and Rufus, sensing the charged atmosphere, wisely went on a walk, holding hands.

Mason cleared his throat. “I’ll just pop over and, uh, make sure Amy doesn’t punch your mother, shall I?”

Silence reigned.

“You saved him,” Lucy said at last. “Even though you knew you shouldn’t have.”

Flynn looked at her. Her eyes were like the night sky. He swore he could even see stars in them. “He was a good man. An honorable man. He sacrificed himself to save Baumgardner.”

“But he’s the reason we’re here now. He’s the reason people are coming to Hamunaptra. If you’d killed him and Dave, your secret would be safe.”

Flynn looked away, into the fire. He wasn’t sure he could handle what he saw in her eyes.

“Garcia.”

That startled him. He looked back at her.

Lucy took his face in her hands—her small, gentle hands—and slowly, ever so slowly, tipped her face up to his.

It was the softest kiss he had ever known.

She pulled away, just a hair’s breadth. “You’re a good man,” she whispered.

That nearly undid him. He wasn’t a good man. A good man would have found a way to save his beautiful wife and daughter, a good man would have followed orders for the good of the people and not given into his own softness, a good man would know how to say what he felt, a good man—

Lucy kissed him again, a little harder this time, and Flynn couldn’t help but open his mouth to her a little, gasping sharply when she deepened the kiss, inhaling the soft noise she made.

He pulled away, even as he wanted to keep kissing her, to kiss her until he forgot that anything else existed. “Lucy.”

She smiled at him, so soft and happy, and oh, gods, he couldn’t lose her. Not like Lorena and Iris. He had to make sure they kept this creature hidden away so he could never hurt her or Wyatt.

He brought his hand up, cupping her face gently. He wouldn’t tell her, not now, not when he’d already saddled her with so much. Not when she had said she wanted both of them, and neither of them had spoken to Wyatt.

She could learn all the ways that he was broken tomorrow.

Wyatt came back, Dave’s arm slung around Wyatt’s shoulders. They’d appeared to have some kind of pep talk. Wyatt froze when he saw Lucy and Flynn.

Lucy smiled at him. “I’m cold,” she announced.

Wyatt looked over at Flynn, but when Flynn didn’t protest, he slowly walked over and sat down on Lucy’s other side.

“I’ll get the bed rolls,” Flynn said, getting up. He wasn’t sure where to proceed with this… this odd balance that Lucy was organizing, this limb she was asking them to step out on, but he’d step on it, because she was the one asking.

When he came back, Lucy had tucked herself into Wyatt’s side. Wyatt shot an alarmed look at Flynn, as if he was panicking internally and wasn’t sure how to react to this newly cuddly Lucy.

Flynn just shrugged at him and settled down on her other side. There was some maneuvering as they settled themselves onto the bedrolls and under the blankets, but Lucy was happy as could be snuggled in between them.

Wyatt shot Flynn another look of near-panic, but Flynn just shook his head. “Go to sleep, Logan.”

Flynn carefully laid his arm over Lucy’s waist, unsure about how and where to touch her. Lucy sighed contentedly.

He didn’t think he would get to sleep easily, with Lucy all warm in his arms and Wyatt cuddled on her other side, carefully not touching Flynn. And yet, somehow, Lucy’s cat-with-the-cream contentedness lulled him into a deep slumber.

An ill-advised one, as it turned out.

 

* * *

 

Who the fuck did Carol think she was? Lecturing him like he was a child? Just because he’d slept with Emma a few times didn’t mean that he was distracted.

He was as worthy to be a part of Rittenhouse as any of them. He was of the proper bloodlines. He would show Carol that he could handle an expedition.

Especially now that he knew what she didn’t.

It was obvious to Nicholas that there was more to this Flynn asshole than met the eye. Carol didn’t seem to care too much but the guy but Nicholas knew that him just joining Lucy’s expedition out of nowhere wasn’t just because he was a Bedouin like she’d said.

So he’d listened in on the party’s talk that night.

A powerful high priest? With the powers of magic at his fingertips?

If what Flynn was saying was true…

Stealing the book from Carol was easy enough. She was distracted, yelling at Amy. Those two would go at it with hammer and tongs every time they had the chance.

“I’m telling you, and this key—” Amy brandished the… key? It looked like it, sort of.

Carol started yelling something about how Amy wouldn’t know an important archeological find if it smacked her in the back of the head, and Amy ended up setting down the key.

Nicholas looked at the book, with its strange indentation that Carol had noticed. It fit this strange key perfectly.

Neither woman noticed him swiping it.

He snuck into the city, down into the tunnels. To the sarcophagus that Lucy’s expedition had talked about.

Moving the sarcophagus lid was difficult by himself, but he managed after a while. The mummy looked… odd. Awful, actually. Nothing like most mummies.

But then, if he was cursed, Nicholas supposed that made sense.

He opened the book.

It spoke of the night and the day. _Amun Ra. Amun Dei. Su wei ah, imes ibt iewa, ya towei, ya towei, ya towei…_

The mummy in front of him sprang to life with a roar.


	9. Chapter 9

Lucy was dreaming a lovely dream.

She was warm and safe and in her big soft bed at home. She could smell coffee. Wyatt was a warm weight at her side. She could tell it was Wyatt, because he smelled like clean soap and somehow like baked bread. Flynn smelled like the desert winds and strong whiskey.

She cuddled closer to Wyatt, thinking _just five more minutes_. He pulled her in tighter against him, holding her close and safe.

Thank fuck she’d taken the reins and just yanked them both into bed with her, even if it was just to cuddle. She was done with keeping her preferences silent. She wanted both of them, and both of them she would have.

 _Lucy_.

Flynn was shaking her gently. Bringing her coffee, waking her up. _Lucy._

_Five more minutes._

“Lucy!”

She sat bolt upright. Flynn was shaking her, his face pale. “Lucy get up, get up, hurry!”

Lucy scrambled to her feet as Wyatt jerked awake, already reaching for his gun. “What is—”

Jiya was standing, the wind whipping her clothes, her face turned away from them all towards the distant hills.

“It awakens,” she whispered. “Someone has awoken it.”

“Who?” Flynn demanded.

Rufus, Mason, and Amy were scrambling to their feet. Lucy could hear a kind of odd, clicking noise—no not clicking, but it was like… like a bunch of little noises all being heard at the same time…

A strange black cloud seemed to be moving towards them through the dark.

“Jiya!” Flynn demanded. “Who woke it?”

Lucy circled around, and now she could see that Jiya wasn’t actually looking at anything. Her eyes had rolled back until only the whites of them could be seen.

“Jiya?” she whispered. In all the years she’d known the girl, she’d never seen her do anything like this.

Jiya blinked, and her eyes rolled forward, back to normal. “Mr. Keynes,” she said crisply, turning to Flynn. “He awoke the creature.”

Then Amy let out an ear-splitting scream. “Locusts!”

That was the black cloud heading towards them. That was the sound Lucy heard—the sound of a thousand insects all moving at once.

Flynn grabbed her, throwing her to Wyatt, who caught her as she stumbled and started to drag her towards the entrance to the city. “Get underground!” Flynn shouted, grabbing Jiya. “Get underground, all of you!”

Lucy started running, Wyatt’s hand caught up in hers. “Amy!” she screamed. “Amy!”

“I’m here!” Amy grabbed her hand and they were all running—she could hear Flynn behind her with Jiya, and Rufus, yelling for Mason, Mason yelling back at him, they were all running—

“Dave!” Wyatt yelled. “Bam Bam! Dave! Get underground!”

The other expedition was racing towards the tunnel as well, all of them caught up with one another, no sense of order to it. There were so many insects it was like an ocean wave, and Lucy didn’t dare look back, fear making her fast, Wyatt’s and Amy’s hands in hers the only things that she knew.

 

* * *

 

“What the fuck!” Emma yelled as she barreled forward into the dark tunnel. “What the fuck—what the _fuck_ —”

“Where the hell is Nicholas?” Carol yelled.

“Who gives a fuck?” Emma shot back.

They all stumbled and tripped over one another, shoved each other, everyone trying to get ahead. Emma felt someone jostle her and she shoved instinctively, sending the person flying into the wall. She heard the thud of their head and figured whoever it was, she’d knocked them out.

Didn’t matter. All that mattered was she keep running.

She left Dave Baumgardner lying in the dust.

 

* * *

 

Dave awoke slowly.

Everything was dark around him—and he was in some kind of tunnel?

The city, the sunken city. They’d all been fleeing…

He scrambled to his feet. Fuck, it was dark in here. He couldn’t see…

Was that someone? Up ahead? A figure?

“Hello?”

He blinked. The figure, if it had ever been there, was gone.

Dammit, he was letting his fear get to him. He was seeing things. Wouldn’t be the first time, oh no, shell shock had done him up good, it was why he didn’t drink anymore. But it was all fine. He just had to—

A strange wind blew through him, seemed to blow through his very bones.

He couldn’t shake the instinct that someone was behind him.

Dave turned around slowly, telling himself it was just a trick, just the shell shock, just the—

He saw what was behind him and screamed.

 

* * *

 

“Amy!” “Rufus!” “Jiya!” “Wyatt!” “Mason!” “Lucy!” “Flynn!”

Everything was dark and confusing in these tunnels, they were all running like frightened rabbits. Amy’s hand slipped out of hers at some point and she screamed for her, Wyatt’s hand gripping hers like he was going to strangle the life out of her wrist before he even thought of letting go.

Someone bumped into her and Lucy screamed instinctively until she recognized their profile in the semi-dark. “It’s me,” Flynn barked. “Wyatt, we have to—”

Lucy would never know what Flynn was intending to say, because in the next moment, the walls shook, and the sand in front of them started to—to rise up.

Flynn’s eyes went wide. “Scarabs,” he said. “Scarabs!”

He grabbed her and Wyatt, dragging them back down the way they’d come just as the pile of sand exploded and a wave of the blue-black flesh-eating bugs emerged, making a kind of screaming noise and heading straight for them.

Lucy screamed, squeezing both Wyatt’s and Flynn’s hands with all of her might, sprinting with them to stay ahead of the living wave.

They tore through the tunnels, the bugs only inches behind them. Lucy’s heart was pounding and she was nearly crying with fear. She hated feeling helpless, she hated it so much, and she wasn’t going to let herself get eaten alive oh God—

They emerged into a larger cavern, onto a long slanted stone walkway. There were ledges on either side.

“Jump!” Flynn yelled.

Both men let go of her so that they could jump—but while they jumped to the left, she jumped to the right, landing hard against the tall stone wall. Lucy pressed herself back against the wall, watching as the flood of bugs streamed past them.

Her chest was heaving and she leaned against the wall with one hand, wiping at her eyes with the other. Oh, God, Amy and the others, they had to make sure they were all right—

And then her finger caught on something, some kind of catch, the wall against her back began to move—and she found herself spun around.

Vanishing into darkness.

 

* * *

 

Flynn yanked Wyatt farther away, just in case one of the beetles somehow managed to clear the jump and get onto their ledge. Wyatt grabbed Flynn’s shoulder, eyes wide and terrified, fixed on the bugs that streamed past them.

“You’re okay,” Flynn murmured, even though he felt far from okay himself. Those bugs were fucking terrifying. “It’s okay, Wyatt, they can’t get to us here.”

Wyatt nodded, but his grip didn’t loosen on Flynn’s shoulder. For all that he had been a soldier, Flynn thought, Wyatt wasn’t nearly as in control and down to fight as he wanted everyone to think.

The bugs finally finished streaming past and Flynn heaved a sigh of relief. Wyatt’s grip relaxed a bit. “Are you okay?”

Wyatt nodded. “I—I just—” He looked up, and his eyes went wide again. “Lucy?”

Flynn turned—and saw that Lucy was gone.

Oh, no. No, no, no—

“Lucy?”

“Lucy!”

“Lucy!”

 

* * *

 

She was in some kind of dark tunnel. It was nearly impossible to see. Lucy tried to keep her breathing normal, her heartrate down. She was fine, it was all fine, she couldn’t hear bugs of any kind coming towards her…

Then she heard a kind of gurgle, almost but not quite a word.

It almost sounded like the word ‘help’.

Lucy whipped around, her heart leaping up into her throat, only to see Dave there.

The rush of relief nearly knocked her over.

“Oh, Mr. Baumgardner.” Lucy walked up to him. He was facing away from her, probably just as lost as she was. “I was so worried. I just lost Wyatt and—”

She grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, and shrieked.

Dave’s eyes and tongue were gone.

“Oh God.” Lucy thought she might be sick, her stomach churning and bile rising in her throat. “Oh—oh my God—”

Dave gave a piteous moaning noise, trying to speak without a tongue, and Lucy stumbled back, horrified of and for him all at once.

Something stepped out of the shadows with a roar, and she screamed again, whipping around to get a good look at it.

It—it was Nicholas Keynes.

But not Nicholas, not quite. Not anymore. It had some of his face, certainly, but there were also parts that were clearly rotted through, the hands were skeletal, and the eyes—those were—oh _God_ …

Those were Dave Baumgardner’s eyes.

Lucy gagged, nearly vomiting, and stumbled backwards. The body of what had once been Nicholas smelled like rotting flesh and embalming fluid.

Wait, embalming fluid?

The creature advanced on her. Malevolence gleamed in its stolen eyes. Lucy would’ve given anything for a weapon just then. “Flynn!” she screamed. “Wyatt!” Maybe one of them could hear her. “Flynn! Wyatt!”

The creature paused, then tilted its head, its eyes arrowing. “Anck-su-namun?” it asked.

Lucy stared at it. What?

And then she realized—this wasn’t Nicholas. This was something that had stolen Nicholas’s body, just like it had stolen Dave’s eyes and tongue.

This was Imhotep.

 

* * *

 

Flynn felt around the stones on the wall where Lucy had been standing. “It has to have been a trap door of some kind.”

“I’m less worried about what it was and more about what it leads to,” Wyatt replied. Those bugs were fucking terrifying, and he appreciated the fact that Flynn had let Wyatt cling to him like a five-year-old and hadn’t complained. If Lucy had ended up in a pit of them or something…

No. No she had to be fine, she’d be just fine, he wouldn’t even consider another solution.

Up ahead in the tunnel, someone screamed.

Wyatt turned around in time to see Amy emerging, several people behind her, including Mason. “Run!” she screamed. “Run you sons of bitches, run!”

Flynn jumped the gap and grabbed Wyatt’s hand, pulling him into a sprint ahead of Amy. Wyatt heard the telltale screaming sound and knew—they were running from the bugs again.

“Just focus on where I’m holding you,” Flynn told him in between heaving breaths as they booked it into the tunnels. “Don’t think about what’s behind us, just focus on my grip.”

Wyatt tightened his hold. Just focus on Flynn’s grip. Just focus on Flynn.

“Hey!” Amy yelled. “Where the hell did you two idiots leave my sister?”

“We’ll deal with that in a minute!” Flynn shouted.

“I am _not_ getting paid enough for this!” Mason informed them all.

Flynn squeezed Wyatt’s hand. _Just focus on my grip._

Wyatt held on with all his might and ran faster.

 

* * *

 

The creature, Imhotep, was still advancing on her. “ _Come with me,_ ” he said, in Egyptian. “ _My love, my Anck-su-namun_.”

“I hate to disappoint you,” Lucy replied. “But my name is, um, Lucy? Lucy Preston? Not—not whoever you’re thinking of.”

“Lucy, thank fuck!”

She turned just in time to catch Wyatt as he grabbed her and pulled her into a fierce hug. “We—oh shit!”

He’d seen the creature.

Wyatt yanked Lucy behind him as Imhotep growled, advancing on Wyatt.

“Hey!” It was Flynn. “Duck!”

Wyatt yanked Lucy down just as the air above them exploded. She peered over Wyatt’s shoulder in time to see Flynn unload another round from a shotgun into the creature. “Run!” he yelled.

Wyatt grabbed her and they ran past the mummy, over to Flynn. She saw Amy and Mason helping up poor Dave.

“No.” Wyatt let go of her, grabbing Dave. “Bam Bam, fuck, what did that thing do to you?”

“We have to go,” Flynn ordered. “Now!”

They raced out of the tunnels. “I think you got it,” Wyatt said as they emerged into the night. The locusts were gone now, thank heaven for small miracles.

“No mortal weapons can kill this creature,” Flynn replied. “I can’t believe Nicholas was stupid enough to unleash it.”

“Lucy!” Amy crashed into her with all the force of a tsunami. Lucy lost her balance, falling over into the dirt, but she didn’t care because her baby sister was hugging her and _safe_.

“Wyatt! Flynn! Mason!” Rufus and Jiya emerged from another tunnel, Carol and Benjamin behind them. “Oh thank God.”

“We have to get out of here,” Wyatt said.

“We have to kill this thing,” Flynn argued.

Lucy got back onto her feet. “I agree with Flynn. We need to destroy this thing.”

“No way am I letting either of you near it,” Wyatt replied. “Did you see what that thing did to my friend?”

Jiya was muttering something to Dave, passing her hand over his eyes as Rufus got out first aid supplies.

“Listen to me,” Flynn growled, stepping into Wyatt’s space. “Nicholas may have just killed us all. We’ve feared that creature for more than three thousand years. He’s not of this earth anymore, do you understand that? What he did to your friend, he didn’t even finish the job! If we searched those tunnels I guarantee we’d find Keynes’ husk of a corpse. He will feed off all of your organs, until he’s gotten enough to regenerate fully. Then he’ll be unstoppable. He’s the bringer of death. He will never eat, he will never sleep. He will never stop. Not until we stop him.”

Wyatt got up into Flynn’s space as well, until the two men were barely an inch apart. “And I’m telling you that I know a suicide mission when I see one. I saw every single man in my legion die, because we refused to surrender and insisted on fighting. I am not letting that happen again.”

Lucy grabbed Wyatt, the shorter of the two, and was able to yank him back a bit so she could get in between them. “Both of you, stop it. I agree with Flynn but not all of us were soldiers. We need to get the civilians of us out of the way and to safety. Call your Medjai, have them come and hunt the thing, but help me get my sister and the others to safety. Please, Flynn.”

He looked down at her, and she saw his eyes soften. He brought his hand up and gently brushed his thumb over her cheek. “I’ll make sure that you’re safe,” he said.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Rufus looked around. “Where’d Emma get to?”

 

* * *

 

Emma hated these fucking tunnels. Did the ancient Egyptians ever hear of putting street signs or something on walls?

She couldn’t hear the bugs anymore. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything anymore. It was dead silent.

Emma slowed down.

She recognized this room. It was the room where Lucy had found her stupid mummy.

That ridiculous Preston girl. Her mom talked about her like she was some kind of princess or something.

Emma tripped, nearly falling, and turned around with a curse to see what it was.

Ohhhh fuck.

His body was shriveled, dried out, a husk of itself, the skin stretched tight over the bones, but she recognized him all the same.

Nicholas.

A strange wind blew through the room, a wind that seemed to have a voice, and Emma dropped her torch into the sand, jumping with shock.

“Get a hold of yourself,” she muttered.

Then she turned around. And screamed.

A mummy, a living mummy creature wearing what looked like half of Nicholas’s body parts was striding towards her, murder in its eyes. Oh no, no no no, there was no way she was dying like this in this stupid city in the middle of fucking nowhere.

She was no scholar, but she’d been with the Medjai, and been following these idiots around for the past few weeks. She’d picked up a few things.

Emma dropped to her knees, speaking in stilted ancient Egyptian. “ _Spare me, my lord, your faithful servant! Ask anything of me and I will bring it! I live to serve you._ ”

A bit, well, unctuous, but like she gave a fuck when her life was on the line.

The mummy paused. “ _You speak the language_ ,” it mused. “ _I may have use for you_.”

Then it held out its hand, showing her the jewels in its palm.

“ _And the rewards will be manifold_.”

Emma smirked. Well, well, well.


	10. Chapter 10

The journey back to civilization wasn’t fun, to say the least. They were racing as fast as they could, both to stay ahead of their impending doom and to get medical help for Dave.

“I did what I could,” Jiya admitted quietly to Rufus. “With my gift. But it’s not enough. He needs a hospital.”

“He needs a doctor to make a house call,” Rufus replied. “The hospitals are too crowded, and he’d scare everyone else.”

Wyatt had been doing the most to take care of Dave, talking to him quietly while he helped spoon food into Dave’s mouth.

Rufus had mixed feelings about Wyatt. He was a great guy, good for a laugh, but also reckless and prone to try and take over things and see the world in black and white. But now he was seeing a softer side to the guy and he could see why Lucy and Flynn had fallen for him.

Flynn himself was on a knife’s edge, walking around their camp at night, hardly sleeping. Lucy would try and talk to him, and he often saw her walking with him, her smaller arm wrapped around his, probably trying to soothe him the way Wyatt was soothing Dave—although the romantic undertone in the former was definitely lacking in the latter.

Jiya was withdrawn as well. Rufus tried to help her as best he could, but he couldn’t get into her mind and chase away her visions and nightmares.

“One down,” she told him. “Six to go.”

Rufus wasn’t willing to give into fate so easily. Fate hadn’t gotten him anywhere in the world. Fate hadn’t taken care of his brother and his mother. He’d done that.

But Jiya believed in it, and Rufus would have done anything to chase that shadow out of her eyes.

“What can I do?” he asked her. “Anything, I’ll do it.”

“I have to get to Denise,” Jiya told him. “Denise, she’ll know what to do. She will fix things. And we must send out the other Medjai. We must hunt him down.”

Rufus looked at her. “You… you are a Medjai.”

Jiya smiled at him. “Yes.”

“You knew Flynn already.”

“I didn’t expect him to try and take the key by force and set the boat on fire in the process,” Jiya said sourly, like a sibling talking about her annoying brother. “We decided it was better that my… true allegiance not be revealed at first.”

She looked at him, like she expected him to be angry with her. “I wanted to tell her. But Flynn isn’t the only one who took oaths. So did I.”

“Hey, no, it’s okay.” Rufus took her hand. “We all make promises.”

Jiya nodded, then looked out into the desert. “We just have to get to Denise,” she repeated. “Denise will know what to do.”

Rufus didn’t say anything, just gathered her to him, but swore his own oath in his heart. If seven of them were to die, Jiya would not be one of them.

They would see this through. They would make it back.

 

* * *

 

Amy winced as she heard another very heavy object hit another very heavy object—probably the wall.

Jesus Christ, for three people in love with each other, her sister and those two men sure were shit at communicating.

Dave had been put up in the spare room at Lucy and Amy’s apartment in the old fort. Mason was downstairs at the bar getting drunk to, quote, ‘herald the end of the world by drowning in boredom and booze before it got here’. Rufus and Jiya were doing… something. Carol had vanished. Benjamin Cahill was hiding around here somewhere. Emma was still MIA.

In Lucy’s room, however, a battle royale was waging.

Flynn was dumping all of Lucy’s things into suitcases and packing for her. Lucy was unpacking as fast as Flynn could pack and dumping all of the stuff back out of her suitcase. Wyatt kept getting stuff dumped into his arms by both parties.

All three were yelling at each other.

“Absolutely not,” Flynn growled. “You are not staying here. You are going where it’s safe.”

“And you’re coming with,” Wyatt argued, dumping a bunch of Lucy’s clothes onto the bed.

“No, I’m staying here to fight it,” Flynn shot back. “You need to go with Lucy and protect her.”

“As if him protecting me will be any good if this thing kills you and gets all of its power back! Nobody will be safe then!” Lucy grabbed the clothes and started hanging them back up in her closet.

“And how are you supposed to help?” Flynn demanded. “You could have helped by not opening that sarcophagus. I told you not to mess with that thing, didn’t I tell you not to go around messing with that thing?”

“Yes, all right, but we woke up him up—”

“Whoa,” Wyatt interrupted as Lucy dumped a typewriter into his arms. “We didn’t do anything. Nicholas did.”

“Okay, fine, Nicholas woke him up, but now we have to stop him.”

“There goes that ‘we’ again,” Wyatt noted.

Lucy glared at him. “I’m not leaving Flynn.”

“You think I want to leave him either?” Wyatt demanded. He dumped the typewriter onto the bed and looked at Flynn. “Come with us.”

“Somebody has to fight this thing,” Flynn replied.

“Yeah, and you’ll fight it, and you’ll _die_ ,” Wyatt snapped. “I’m not watching that happen.”

“Then don’t watch it happen. Take Lucy and go.”

“I’m not leaving!” Lucy shouted. “I’m keeping all of us together, I don’t care what the risk is, I’m not letting us get split up. And you need me, you need a historian. Can you read ancient Egyptian?”

Flynn opened his mouth, paused, then closed it.

“That’s what I thought,” Lucy said smugly.

“I still say the three of us get the fuck out of here,” Wyatt grumbled.

Flynn pointed at him. “Don’t push it, Logan.”

“We’re staying here,” Lucy said stubbornly. “And we’re banishing this thing.”

“I thought you said you didn’t believe in the supernatural,” Wyatt pointed out, as though that fact had just occurred to him.

“Yes, well, having an encounter with a walking, talking three thousand year old corpse has a way of converting you,” Lucy replied, folding her arms.

“And how are we going to kill him?” Wyatt demanded. “You said it yourself, Flynn, no mortal weapons can kill this guy.”

“Then we’re just going to have to find some _im_ mortal ones,” Lucy replied.

Wyatt rubbed his face. “You two are the most impossible people on the face of the planet, why do I even—”

Amy poked her head in the door. “Um… sorry to, ah, interrupt the lovers’ spat but. Uh. Lucy, Mom’s being a real B-I-T-C-H again.”

“We can all spell,” Lucy pointed out.

Amy pointed at Lucy’s cat Cleo, who was sitting on the windowsill and had been watching the proceedings with the vague superiority of most cats. “Cleo’s a baby, I would never hurt her precious innocent ears like that.”

“Oh my God.” Lucy stormed out after her sister.

“You really should take her to safety,” Flynn said quietly.

Wyatt shook his head. “She wants to stay with you.”

“She wants to stay with both of us, did you not hear a word she said?” Flynn asked.

Screw it. It was the end of the world and there was a mummy after them and bringing ten Biblical plagues with him.

Flynn closed the distance between them, gently grabbing Wyatt’s shoulders. “I need you both safe.”

“You act like you don’t have a choice, but you do,” Wyatt argued. “Come with us. Please.”

Flynn shook his head.

Wyatt looked away, clearing his throat. “I. Uh. I never got to ask. Why did you… why didn’t you kill me, three years ago?”

“Because you were a good man.”

Wyatt snorted. “Some good I turned out to be. Banged around here like an idiot for three years. Got myself arrested. Drowned in my grief.”

“I know what that’s like,” Flynn admitted.

Wyatt looked back at him.

“I had a wife. And a daughter. I lost them in the war, civilian casualties. And for a while my grief consumed me as well. But you aren’t defined by it. You are a good person, Wyatt. You just have to stop trying to be the person you think you should be and start just being who you are, because… because we rather like who you are already.”

Wyatt searched Flynn’s face for a moment. “Why are you like this?”

“Like what?”

“Around you it’s like the world’s tilted sideways,” Wyatt admitted.

Flynn dared to bring his hand up, to softly tilt Wyatt’s chin up. “Is that a bad thing?”

Wyatt’s gaze dropped down to Flynn’s mouth and he started to lean in—and then he looked over Flynn’s shoulder and his eyes went wide. “Flynn.”

Flynn turned around, and saw where Wyatt’s gaze had gone.

Cleo’s water bowl was now filled with a deep red liquid.

“And the rivers and waters of Egypt ran red,” Flynn murmured, “and were as blood.”

He looked back at Wyatt. “He’s here.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m so… pleased to meet you,” Dave stuttered, struggling to talk around the lack of a tongue.

He reached out to shake the man’s hand, but Emma grabbed him by the wrist. “No touching,” she said sweetly. She was surprised that Dave didn’t recognize her voice. “Silly Eastern custom, I’m afraid.”

She looked over at her new master. Imhotep.

Dave’s doom, sitting across from him, taking tea.

It was almost enough to make her laugh.

 

* * *

 

Lucy screamed in surprise as Flynn nearly ran her over. He grabbed her, pulling her into him and kissing the top of her head. “Thank God. Where’s Amy and your mother?”

“Mother’s vanished off somewhere again, Amy’s at the bar with Mason and Rufus—”

Wyatt streaked past her. “Dave!” he shouted. “He’ll want to finish the job!”

“What?”

Flynn’s face was grim. “Imhotep is here.”

Then the fire began to rain from the sky.

“Shit!” Flynn yanked her out of the way. People were yelling, everything was getting scorched, it was mayhem. Lucy clutched at Flynn, hating how scared she felt, hating the knowledge that she was partially responsible for this.

Then they heard the screams.

Lucy tore up the stairs with Flynn. She heard yelling that sounded like Amy and the others heading for the noise—it had come from her apartment, from her spare room, from Dave—

Next she heard Wyatt’s scream of fury. “You fucking bastard!”

Lucy skidded to a stop in front of the open doorway.

Wyatt was kneeling by the emaciated, dried out body of what had once been Dave Baumgardner. Over on the other side of the room, muscles slowly twining their way around him, joints popping into place, blood running over his fresh skin… was Imhotep.

“Wyatt get back!” Flynn yelled, drawing his sword.

Lucy yanked herself out of Flynn’s grip and ran to Wyatt. “Wyatt, c’mon.”

“He—he sucked the life out of him, he—” Wyatt was clearly in shock.

Lucy started to drag him away. They only had until the creature finished transforming before it would turn on them. “Wyatt, please, come on…”

The mummy turned around and saw them.

Flynn charged the creature as it advanced on Lucy and Wyatt, only to be knocked to the side and go flying across the room. Wyatt got to his feet, shielding Lucy, but the mummy grabbed him as well and sent him flying into Mason, Rufus, and Amy right as they entered the room. They all went down like ninepins.

Lucy backed away slowly. “ _Anck-su-namun_ ,” the mummy repeated, reaching for her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Amy scramble to her feet. “Hey!” Amy yelled.

To Lucy’s surprise, Amy produced Cleo.

“Power of Bast, you fucking moron!” Amy shouted, flinging Cleo at the mummy.

The mummy recoiled with a scream, turning into a whirlwind of sand and flinging itself out the window.

Amy grinned at Lucy as Cleo landed neatly on her feet, meowing to inform everyone that she was very put out by this treatment. “Told ya I was paying attention when you lectured me,” she said.

Lucy ran over to Wyatt. “Wyatt, hey, c’mere.”

She pulled him into her, hugging him fiercely. Wyatt wrapped his arms around her, burying his face into her shoulder.

“Two dead,” Rufus murmured.

Mason, sensing the atmosphere, hustled Amy and Rufus out. “We must get a hold of Dr. Cahill and Dr. Preston,” he told them.

Flynn stood quietly to the side, sheathing his sword.

Lucy could feel Wyatt shaking.

“We’re gonna kill it,” Wyatt hissed. “We’re going to kill that rat bastard. Dave was—he was the best guy I knew. Always cheerful, just—just a stand up guy. He was there for me when—when I lost Jess, my wife, when I—he was there and I—”

Lucy pulled back, taking his face in her hands and kissing his cheek, wiping away the tears.

“I should’ve protected him,” Wyatt admitted.

Lucy shook her head. “This is something we can’t fight. Not the usual way. It’s not your fault. But we’ll avenge him.”

Wyatt nodded, turning his face into her hand, breathing like he was breathing her in, memorizing her.

“We’ll kill him,” Lucy promised. She looked over at Flynn. “All three of us, all right?”

Flynn nodded at her. “Lead the way, Lucy.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

Lucy took them to the Cairo Museum. Partially because that was where Jiya had gone, according to Rufus, and partly because if anyone would know what to do about this, it was Denise Christopher.

Mason, Rufus, Amy, and Dr. Cahill all came with.

“Why are we tagging along again?” Mason asked. “I thought it was just the people who had the ceramic jars or whatnot that were targets?”

“We’re all targets, Mason,” Rufus replied. “And anyway weren’t you saying the other day how you wished you were still in the Royal Air Force because of how boring it was getting?”

“Yes, well, when I said I wanted some excitement I’m not sure that I meant quite this much,” Mason grumbled.

“Denise is the best of the best,” Lucy told Wyatt.

“Um…” Flynn started to say.

“If anybody can tell us what to do, it’ll be her.”

“Ah…”

They turned the corner to find Jiya talking to Denise—who was not wearing her usual professor’s outfit.

She was wearing the same Medjai robes as Flynn.

“You?” Lucy blurted out.

Jiya looked over at Denise.

Denise sighed. “Yes, me. I am the head of the Medjai.”

Lucy and Wyatt rounded on Flynn, who shrugged. “I did try to tell you just now.”

Denise sighed. “Flynn here has proven himself to be a little more… unorthodox than I had thought.”

Flynn glared at Jiya. “You told her about the boat, didn’t you?”

“You set a boat on _fire_ , of course I’m going to tell her!”

“Well did she tell you that she’s dating Rufus? Left out that little detail, didn’t she?”

Jiya’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, you are _so_ paying for that, tattletale.”

“Tattletale? You told on me first!”

“Children,” Denise said dryly. “There is a three-thousand-year-old high priest on the loose.”

“Um, I hate to, ah, complicate things,” Lucy said carefully. “But… but twice now, the mummy’s approached me. He’s called me ‘Anck-su-namun’.”

Flynn nodded grimly. “He has.”

Denise’s jaw clenched. “That was the name of his lover, the pharaoh’s mistress. It seems that even after so many years he’s still looking to bring her back.”

“What does that have to do with Lucy?” Wyatt asked.

“He needs a body to sacrifice for her to inhabit,” Denise replied.

Amy hissed. “Ooh, bad luck, Lucy.”

Jiya’s eyes rolled backwards, showing the whites of her eyes. “And he stretched his hand out towards the heavens,” she intoned, “and there was darkness over the land of Egypt.”

Everyone turned their faces skyward.

The sun was being covered in an eclipse.

 

* * *

 

“We need to find my mother,” Lucy insisted. “She’s not safe.”

“Wyatt and I will go out and look for her,” Flynn said. “Amy, you too, she’s your mother. Lucy, stay here.”

“Um…” Amy bit her lip. “So…”

“Excuse me?” Lucy folded her arms. “After the talk we just had? You are not—”

Flynn picked Lucy up and flung her over his shoulder. “Shall I put her in your office, Denise?”

“By all means. We’ll guard her.”

“Flynn!” Lucy kicked at him. “Garcia Flynn, you put me down right this instant. Wyatt! Wyatt you make him put me down!”

“You’re being targeted by a mummy, Lucy, I think he’s got the right idea. You stay here and we’ll get your mom.”

“I hate all of you,” Lucy declared. “Amy, are you really going to let him fling me around like some old carpet bag?”

“I mean, I’d totally stop him,” Amy replied. “He’s just, um, very tall.”

Flynn plopped Lucy into Denise’s office chair, kissed her on the forehead (Lucy swatted him) and then darted back out the door before she could run after him, closing the door behind him and locking it.

Lucy pounded on the door. “Flynn! Wyatt! I am punishing both of you for this! Do you hear me? If either of you thought you were getting _anything_ anytime soon you are sadly mistaken!”

“Please tell me she doesn’t mean what I think she means,” Amy said wearily. “This is my sister we’re talking about.”

“I mean… she didn’t say anything to us about anything…” Wyatt said.

Flynn tossed the key to Dr. Cahill. “Nobody goes in, and nobody goes out. That door stays closed. Amy, with us.”

“I’ll alert the rest of the Medjai,” Denise said. “Jiya?”

“Yes, Head Medjai.” Jiya followed Denise, and Rufus followed Jiya.

They went into the next room, where Jiya settled herself down on the floor, cross-legged.

“What is she doing?” Rufus asked, sitting down with her.

“Jiya is more powerful than you know. She is not my assistant—she is my heir. When I am gone she will be the head of our order. She can see through time, if she concentrates enough. She will keep track of the creature, try to find him with her mind.”

Rufus took Jiya’s hand. “Then I’ll be right here.”

Jiya kissed him softly and then her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped against him.

“Do not wake her,” Denise warned.

Rufus nodded.

“Want some company?” Mason asked, sitting down nearby.

“Sure,” Rufus said, smiling at him. Mason was annoying as hell at times but he was also Rufus’s mentor. And he’d never admit it, but… he’d filled the father-shaped hole that Rufus had had in his life.

Wyatt looked over at Flynn. “Shall we?”

 

* * *

 

They didn’t find Carol Preston at her office, but they did find Emma.

She was going through Carol’s things, rooting through her papers.

Flynn wanted to run a sword through her. “Let me guess,” he said, announcing their presence. “Spring cleaning?”

Emma looked up, saw him, and bolted for the window.

Flynn picked up the nearest chair and threw it at her.

The chair hit Emma in the legs, tripping her up. Flynn stormed over, grabbing her and hauling her up by the collar. “I noticed you have a new friend, Emma,” he growled, rage filling him. “Brought him back from the desert, did you?”

“It’s better to be the right hand of the Devil than in his path,” Emma snapped. “As long as I’m his servant, I’m safe.”

“Uh-huh. So what are you looking for? And do your best not to lie to me.”

With that he hoisted Emma up until her face was nearly in contact with the whirling blades of the ceiling fan.

“Whoa!” Amy yelped, probably thinking Flynn was going too far.

Flynn couldn’t help but notice that Wyatt, on the other hand, was looking at him like he was going to jump Flynn the first chance he got.

“What are you looking for?” Flynn demanded. “What does Imhotep want!”

“This stupid book,” Emma snarled. “Carol snatched it back when we were all running into the tunnels from the locusts. He needs it to bring his dead girlfriend back to life.” She paused, then looked at Amy. “Oh, and he wants your precious sister too.”

Flynn hoisted her up just a little closer to the fan blades. Because he’d had a bad day and he felt like it.

“That’s it!” Emma yelped. “That’s it, Flynn, I swear!”

“That better be it, or—”

Emma kicked him in the balls.

White-hot pain shot through him and he let go of Emma, doubling over. Emma sprinted for the open window and literally flung herself out the window.

“Hey!” Wyatt shouted, chasing after her.

“What the hell happened to my office?” Carol demanded.

Everyone turned to see Carol Preston standing in the doorway, Book of the Dead in her arms.

“Mom!” Amy barreled to her, hugging her. “Thank fuck. We gotta get out of here, now!”

Carol frowned. “I am not going anywhere, Amy, what do you—”

That was how they found out that Carol and Lucy Preston did have one thing in common besides blood and name.

They both angrily shrieked up a storm when picked up and carried against their will.

 

* * *

 

Mason sighed. Rufus couldn’t blame him. Jiya was still in her trance, and this was admittedly pretty boring. “I’m going to see if there’s anything to drink around here.”

He peered into the next room. “Dr. Cahill? Would you like anything to drink?”

“Some bourbon, if you can find it.”

“Okay.”

“And a shot of bourbon.”

“You got it.”

“With a bourbon chaser.”

“I’ll get your bloody bourbon!”

Mason slammed the connecting door shut. “I really hate him.”

Rufus nodded. Mason walked out, and for a moment, silence reigned.

Then Jiya began to shake.

“Jiya?”

She was shaking uncontrollably, her eyelids fluttering.

Shit. Denise had said not to wake her up. “Jiya, Jiya my love, hey, hey, it’s okay, Jiya—”

Jiya sat upright, screaming. “He’s here!”

From the next room came a huge roar.

Rufus jumped to his feet, grabbing the gun that Wyatt had left him, and shoved open the connecting door.

Where Dr. Cahill had once been, there was now his dried-out corpse.

But there was no sign of the mummy.

 

* * *

 

Lucy had fallen asleep at the desk. Sue her.

There wasn’t much else to do around here. The window was too high up and too small to crawl through, and nobody had listened to her no matter how much she begged and pleaded and threatened for them to let her out.

So, she’d taken a little nap on Denise’s little chaise against the back wall.

It was surprisingly comfortable. And she was having a very pleasant dream. Flynn was behind her and Wyatt was in front of her, but they were, infuriatingly, not kissing her on the mouth the way that she wanted. They were kissing her everywhere else, though, and that was more than all right, she could work with that, definitely—

Oh, finally, Wyatt was kissing her and… and…

Why was this so cold? And feeling so… so weird and…

Lucy’s eyes flew open.

She screamed.

The still partially-decomposed mummy _was kissing her with his tongue in her mouth._

That was when the door burst open and Flynn, Wyatt, and Amy stood in the doorway.

“Hey!” Wyatt shouted. “Get your filthy mouth offa her!”

The mummy pulled away and Lucy immediately spit. Oh, God, she was making out with either Wyatt or Flynn as soon as possible to get that awful taste out of her mouth. The mummy growled, lunging for them, but then Amy grinned and held up Cleo.

“Look what I got! Remember Cleo, motherfucker?”

Cleo hissed.

The mummy shrieked in fear, turning into a whirlwind of sand once again, and flinging itself out the tiny window.

Flynn ran over to her, pulling her to her feet. “You all right?”

Lucy yanked him in by the robes and kissed him. Not a sweet gentle kiss either, she did not have the patience for that.

Oh, yes, this was much better.

She pulled away, leaving Flynn looking like someone had whacked him with a frying pan, and kissed Wyatt next.

Excellent kissers, even when taken by surprise. Perfect.

When she pulled away from Wyatt, Amy said, “I love you and all, but I hope you’re not planning on thanking me like that.”

“You get a pass,” Lucy replied.

“We got Mom,” Amy said. “She’s pissed but she’s safe and she’s got the book.”

“The book?” Lucy asked.

“The Book of the Dead,” Flynn said. “It’s what Nicholas used to bring Imhotep back to life.”

Lucy stared at him, pieces falling into place in her head. “Mom!”

She tore out of the room. Carol was sitting there with Jiya, Mason, Denise, and Rufus.

“Mom! You dug that out of the base of Anubis, right?”

“Yes?” Carol replied.

Lucy nodded. Just like she’d thought. Not good enough to be a Rittenhouse scholar, huh? “Follow me.”

She led them all upstairs. Up on the mezzanine, there was a large slab of stone that the Rittenhouse scholars—her mom and Dr. Cahill, specifically—had translated a few years ago. That had been where they’d learned about the books of life and death.

As they went up, Lucy heard an odd sound. Was that… chanting?

She looked at the others in confusion. Denise turned and crossed over to the window.

“Is it… the other Medjai?” Jiya asked tentatively.

Lucy followed Denise and peered out the window.

A huge crowd of what looked like the entire population of Cairo was marching to them, carrying torches like a mob out of some gothic novel, all of them covered in boils and sores.

“Ew,” Amy said, peering over her shoulder. “My least favorite plague.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t get to the deaths of the first born,” Lucy replied.

Amy went pale.

Lucy crossed over to the massive slab. “The Book of Death brought Imhotep back to life. That means that the Book of Amun Ra, the book of life, can probably kill him.”

Denise smiled proudly at her. “Genius, Lucy.”

Lucy tried not to preen. Denise’s praise was rare and therefore genuinely earned. “Now, Mom, you translated it so that the golden Book of _Life_ was at the base of Anubis. But obviously that’s wrong, because you found the Book of Death. So that means you switched up… where the books were…”

She started translating. Mom huffed in annoyance, which made Amy elbow her. Downstairs, the sound of the mob banging on the door trying to open it could be heard.

“Lucy,” Wyatt said. “Hurry it up…”

“Patience is a virtue,” Lucy replied, desperately trying to find the words that would confirm for her where the Book of Amun Ra was.

Flynn was peering down over the balcony. “Not right now, it isn’t!” he replied.

The doors burst open and the mob poured in.

“I’ll just… get the car started,” Rufus said, grabbing Jiya and dragging her down the hall.

“Got it!” Lucy crowed, triumph flooding her. “The golden Book of Life is at the base of the statue of Horus in Hamunaptra! Take _that_ , Rittenhouse scholars!”

“Bravo,” Mom said, and she actually didn’t sound sarcastic for once.

“Okay,” Wyatt said, grabbing Lucy’s wrist. “Let’s get the hell out of dodge.”

They had it. They had a way to kill Imhotep.

They had to go back to Hamunaptra.


	12. Chapter 12

“We have to go back?” Amy demanded. “This is insane!”

“At least we’ll be out of Cairo,” Flynn replied. “So far his influence is just the city—”

Flynn stopped. His face went pale.

Halfway down the corridor, Rufus fell to his knees.

And Wyatt started to shake.

“Flynn?” Lucy said. “Wyatt?”

“Rufus!” Jiya screamed. “Denise, he’s seizing up!”

Flynn collapsed to the ground with a groan as Wyatt began to shake violently, his eyes rolling back into his head.

“Death of the firstborns,” Amy croaked. “Death of the firstborn sons.”

Lucy grabbed uselessly at Flynn and Wyatt. “Stop, stop, make it stop!”

“We need lamb’s blood,” Mason said, racing to Rufus and catching him. “Rufus, come on, don’t do this to me.”

“We don’t have lamb’s blood!” Lucy said hysterically. Flynn was foaming at the mouth and Wyatt sank to his knees. Neither appeared to be breathing. Rufus was seizing so violently in Mason’s arms that his body was lifting off the ground.

“Denise!” Jiya yelled. “Denise, please!”

“It will take a great deal of my power,” Denise replied. “I only have so much.”

“What good is it if we can’t save our friends?” Jiya shot back.

“What is she talking about?” Carol demanded.

“Please.” Lucy was desperately wiping at Flynn’s mouth, then doing chest compressions on Wyatt. “Amy, help me, help me!”

Amy started chest compressions on Flynn.

“Denise!” Jiya shrieked, desperately holding onto Rufus’s hand. “Please!”

Denise closed her eyes and stretched out her arms.

There was a kind of flash in the room, as though the air itself was shifting, bending the light in strange, unnatural ways. Her eyes glowed golden and her hands shook.

The lights all around them dimmed—and then grew brighter as Flynn, Wyatt, and Rufus all began to breathe again.

Lucy sobbed in relief, bending her head down between them, her hands shaking as she gripped their shirts. Jiya kissed Rufus’s knuckles as Mason nearly fell over, laughing a little hysterically.

Denise lowered her arms, her eyes returning to normal. Her chest heaved with effort.

“You—you can do that? You have—you have magic?” Carol blurted out. As an Egyptologist, she and Denise had known each other for some time, as colleagues in the same field if not as friends.

Denise glared at her. “Yes. It is the collected magic of the Head Medjai before me. But once it is used up, it is gone, and I am a regular mortal. I must be careful.”

“This was worth it,” Lucy said fiercely.

“In war, sometimes you must lose a battle in order to win it all,” Flynn said, gasping a little as he got his strength back.

“No.” Lucy shook her head, cupping his face in her hands. “No, never.”

Jiya and Mason got Rufus to his feet. “We’re getting the car,” Rufus said, still a little out of breath.

As they took off, the others hauled Wyatt and Flynn to their feet.

“You three are protected,” Denise told them.

Flynn inclined his head at her. “ _Hvala vam_ , Medjai Christopher.”

Denise placed her hand on his shoulder. Her voice and face were loving but stern. “Save your thanks. The fight isn’t over.”

 

* * *

 

Rufus and Jiya hurried out of the museum—only to run into the mob.

“Do as I say,” Rufus hissed, slowing down to a regular walk.

“They’ve become his slaves,” Jiya hissed.

Sure enough, the mob was chanting, “Imhotep.”

Rufus started walking slowly and stiffly, chanting along with them. “Imhotep, Imhotep, Imhotep…”

Jiya did the same.

The mob stopped running after them and began to walk stiffly and chant as well.

Rufus slowly distanced them from the crowd, and then they sprinted for it, hopping into the car and starting it.

“Not bad for a guy with no psychic powers, huh?”

Jiya leaned in and kissed him. “Not bad at all.”

Everyone else came tearing out of the museum. “Rufus!” Wyatt yelled. “Start driving, just start driving!”

Flynn reached the car first, then turned and hoisted Lucy and then Amy into it. Wyatt hoisted in Carol, and then the two men jumped into the front seat. Mason and Denise sprinted and latched onto the back, yanking themselves in as the car started to really gain traction.

Emma ran out of the museum. “Imhotep!” she yelled. “They’re getting away! Imhotep!”

Flynn stood up, which made Wyatt yelp and grab onto his legs so he didn’t fall out. “You’re going to get yours, Emma!” he bellowed. “You fucking hear me? You’re going to get yours!”

“Come and get me, Flynn!” Emma shouted back, flipping him off.

Wyatt climbed over Rufus, literally shoving him to the side so that Jiya had to scramble onto his lap. “What the hell, man?”

“My dad used to make me race and fix up his old car,” Wyatt said. “Less said about him the better but trust me.” He grinned. “I know what I’m doing behind the wheel. Everyone hang on!”

Rufus looked over at Lucy. “You just think this is all wildly arousing, don’t you?”

Lucy shrugged. “Nobody likes a kinkshamer, Rufus.”

Rufus just groaned. White people. Honestly.

 

* * *

 

It was Jiya and Rufus in the middle at the front, Jiya on Rufus’s lap, while Wyatt drove and Flynn was on the outside end. Mason was standing up along with Denise, guns and sword in hand respectively. Lucy was sitting in the middle between Mom and Amy.

“That really was good translating you did,” Mom admitted quietly. “I shouldn’t have kept underestimating you.”

She took Lucy’s hand, squeezing it. “I know we’ve had our differences but I love you, Lucy. That’s never changed. It never will change.” She looked over at Amy. “You too, Amy. You’re my girls.”

Lucy rested her head on her mom’s shoulder. “I love you too.”

Amy reached over, putting her hand over their joined ones. “You’re a pain in the ass but you’re my mom and I think that’s how it’s supposed to go, right?” she teased. “I love you too.”

Then Wyatt brought the car to a screeching halt.

Lucy launched herself forward, grabbing Wyatt’s shoulders to get a better look.

The mob was directly ahead of them.

Wyatt grit his teeth. “All right guys. Hang on.”

He hit the gas.

They tore through the mob, mowing down people right and left, but there were still enough to jump on and tear at them. Denise and Flynn swung their swords with abandon while Amy and Mason fired their guns. Rufus, without a weapon, just ended up shoving people off.

It was chaos. Lucy was dodging, punching, trying desperately to keep herself and everyone else in the overcrowded car.

“Lucy!”

It was her mom, shrieking, but not in anyway that she’d ever heard her mom sound before.

Lucy whipped around—just in time to see Mom, and the Book of the Dead, go tumbling over the side of the car in the hands of the mob.

She knew that she screamed, because she could feel it in her throat, but she couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t hear anything.

She launched herself forward without thought—and felt two arms like a vice wrap around her waist and haul her back.

“Lucy,” Flynn said, his voice in her ear. “Lucy, Lucy no.”

“Mom!” she screamed. “Mom! Mom!”

“She’s gone.” Flynn rested his forehead against hers as he turned her into him, so she wouldn’t have to see. “Lucy, she’s gone.”

Denise was holding back Amy, who had also tried to launch herself out and was still hissing and spitting like a cat. “You fucking piece of shit!” she was yelling, presumably at Imhotep. “Get over here! I’m going to claw his face off! I’m going to rip out every single organ!”

It felt like everything was in slow motion. The only thing that really felt real was Flynn holding her, holding her and soothing her.

And then Wyatt swerved and rammed the car into a fountain.

They all nearly fell out of the car. Wyatt jumped out and Flynn passed her to him, and she sagged into him.

“You haven’t lost all of us,” he whispered, carrying her out of the way as the others piled out of the car. “We’re still here, Lucy, you haven’t lost us.”

But she would. She would lose every single one of them.

Unless…

“Fuck,” Mason swore. “Dead end.”

Wyatt set her down and pulled her behind him, drawing his gun. Flynn came around to her other side, one hand stretched back as if to make sure she was really still there. Amy, Mason, and Denise were all in front, Rufus and Jiya next to her. The five fighters protecting the other three.

The mob died down and went still.

Then it parted, and Imhotep emerged.

Emma was at his side. Emma, who her mother had hired. Emma, who her mother had trusted.

Emma who had just watched her mother die.

Rage, black and vicious, rose up inside of Lucy and threatened to choke her.

Imhotep smiled as he approached. Fully regenerated, Amy’s cat trick wouldn’t help them now.

“ _Keetah mi pharos,_ ” Imhotep said, “ _a ja nilo, isiran._ ”

 “He says, ‘come with me, my princess, and we will be together forever.’”

“It’s for ‘all eternity’, idiot,” Lucy snapped.

“ _Koontash_ ,” Imhotep said, “ _Dai na a ja nilo_.”

“Take my hand,” Emma translated, “And I will spare your friends.”

Lucy’s thoughts exactly.

“Got any bright ideas?” she asked the boys.

Flynn looked at Wyatt, who looked right back at him.

“I’m thinking,” Wyatt said at last.

“Well think fast,” Lucy replied. She stepped out from behind them, out of their reach. “Because if he turns me into a mummy who two are the first ones I’m coming after.”

“What?” Wyatt blurted out.

“Lucy, no.” Flynn sounded like someone had shoved a sword into his stomach.

It felt like someone was reaching inside of her and ripping out everything inside of her until she was nothing but a hollow shell, but she had to do it. She’d just lost her mother. Wyatt had lost his friend.

She couldn’t let everyone else she loved die, too.

She walked towards Imhotep.

“No!” Wyatt’s voice was a hoarse scream, and when Lucy looked over her shoulder she saw Mason and Rufus holding him back. Tears were running down Amy’s face, and Flynn was just standing, staring, his eyes black and empty.

“He still has to take me to Hamunaptra to perform the ritual,” Lucy reminded them.

“Live today,” Denise added. “Fight tomorrow.”

“I lost one family,” Flynn said warningly, and Lucy knew he was talking to Imhotep. “I lost a wife. I lost a daughter. You’re not taking her. Do you understand?”

Imhotep just smiled. “ _Kill them all_.”

“No!” Emma was grabbing her, hauling her back, as Lucy felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. “Amy! Amy run! Flynn! Wyatt!”

All she heard was Wyatt scream her name one last time before she was dragged away.

 

* * *

 

“Shit,” Rufus said as the mob closed in. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Wyatt and Flynn both looked absolutely gutted. Amy was openly crying. And now they were going to be torn apart limb from limb.

He took a step back—and felt his heel scrape against something.

He looked down.

A manhole cover. To the sewers.

“Guys!” He yanked the manhole cover back. “Down here, fast!”

“That’s my sister!” Amy was yelling at Flynn as he picked her up and passed her to Rufus.

“We’ll get her back,” Flynn promised.

Rufus helped Amy into the hole. Mason was next, then Wyatt.

“Go,” Denise said to Flynn. He jumped down the hole.

Rufus held his hand out. “Jiya?”

But Jiya was looking at Denise, a devastated look on her face. “Five?” she whispered.

Denise reached up, cupping Jiya’s face. “You have it in you, Jiya. You are more powerful than you know.”

Jiya shook her head, tears springing into her eyes. “No. No, Denise—no, please—”

“It’s your time. Mine is over.” Denise nodded at Rufus. “Get her to safety.”

Rufus didn’t like it, but he knew better than to waste time arguing with her. He grabbed Jiya.

“No!” Jiya shrieked as he forced her into the manhole. “Denise! Please!”

Denise nodded at Rufus, just the once.

He jumped down the hole.

He heard and saw the manhole cover pushed back into place by Denise, heard her yelling in Arabic. Flynn and Mason lit up sticks or whatever they’d salvaged from the sewers—Rufus didn’t really want to know—and Amy was crying still, wiping at her eyes.

“Rufus!” Jiya grabbed him. “Rufus, how could you! She’s—”

And then Jiya collapsed.

She started shaking, convulsing, her eyes rolling back.

“Oh gods,” Flynn muttered.

“What is it?” Rufus demanded. Was this a seizure? Was it another vision?

“She’s becoming the Head Medjai,” Flynn intoned. “Our leaders—they all have the gift. It’s why they’re chosen. When one dies, the heir inherits their memories. That’s—that’s why I said ‘we’, before. I wasn’t there. Nor were most of my brethren. But Denise was, in a way. She has all the memories as if she was there. And now Jiya will have them.”

Jiya opened her mouth, like she was silently screaming. Rufus hauled her into his arms. No, no, Jiya, be strong, please…

She shook violently, and Rufus had to hold on as tight as he could to keep her from thrashing too hard and hurting herself.

And then she stopped. Opened her eyes.

“Jiya?” Rufus whispered. Did she still know him?

She reached up, cupping his cheek. “You told me a story,” she said, childlike. “About a farmboy who became a knight.”

He nodded.

She smiled. “Rufus.”

He nodded again. “Yes, hi, that’s me.”

Jiya sat up and kissed him.

“Not that this isn’t disgustingly romantic and all that,” Mason said. “But if we want to get to Hamunaptra in time, I have an idea. But we might want to hurry.”

Rufus pulled back. “How do you feel?”

A strange golden light flashed in Jiya’s eyes. When she spoke, it was not merely in her own voice.

“Powerful.”


	13. Chapter 13

Mason’s brilliant idea was, apparently, to fly them to Hamunaptra on the two planes he had access to since he was, technically, still a member of the Royal Air Force.

“When was the last time you even flew in one of these things?” Rufus asked.

Wyatt was pretty unsure of this himself. “How safe is this thing?”

“Seeing as you four will be strapped to the wings, probably not very,” Mason replied cheerfully.

“Let me pilot,” Rufus said. “Seriously, Mason, I can do this.”

“I know that you can do it, Rufus, but I’d like to be the one. I’ve done barely anything to help out this whole time. Just let me have this. I’m not such an old fogey, you know.”

Rufus sighed, but there was a fond expression on his face. “Fine. But I take the backseat, just in case.”

“Deal.”

Wyatt allowed himself to be strapped next to Amy on one wing, while Flynn and Jiya were strapped to the other—that way the weight would be as evenly distributed as possible.

“If this thing crashes, I’m coming back as a ghost and haunting all of you,” he informed them. Fuck, he hated this idea.

Flynn walked over, checking Wyatt’s straps. “How about we stop the bad guy, save the damsel in distress, and then I’ll see about rewarding you for it, hmm?”

Wyatt was pretty sure he had a miniature stroke. He still didn’t know what he and Flynn were, other than apparently Lucy’s boyfriends, but—but that was to Lucy. Sharing her, that was one thing. But the two of them?

He wanted. He wanted so badly it was like fire in his lungs. But he had no idea how to ask for it, or how to respond when it was offered. “Um.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Flynn said, smirking at him and brushing his fingers lightly over the back of Wyatt’s hand before walking over to let Mason and Rufus strap him down on the opposite wing.

“Would it kill you all to cut the flirting for two seconds?” Amy grumbled. “Some of us are annoyingly single over here.”

Wyatt had the very clear, very precise thought that the apocalypse was upon them, and if he wanted Flynn to pin him to a wall and make out with him and—and other things, then. Well.

Who the fuck cared?

“Hey Amy, I hear there’s a three-thousand-year-old mummy who’s looking to get laid.”

“Oh shut up, Wyatt.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy had thought traveling by camel was bad.

Then she’d traveled by fucking _sandstorm_.

She hated everything.

She was dumped out, along with Emma, in the desert right in front of Hamunaptra. The sandstorm coalesced into the shape of Imhotep, who was now wearing annoyingly little clothing. “Are you allergic to proper clothes or something?” Lucy snapped.

Then she heard it—the buzz of an airplane.

Lucy turned, looking up, and saw the plane flying in. She smiled helplessly. Wyatt and Flynn.

Imhotep turned and saw it as well. His mouth opened wide and he lifted his arms, calling up the sand, whirling it into a sandstorm that chased after the plane.

No!

“Stop it! Stop it, you’ll kill them!”

“That’s the idea, princess,” Emma sniped.

Lucy looked over at Imhotep. He had said she was his princess, after all…

Lucy grabbed him, yanking his face to hers and kissing him with all of her might, spinning him around and opening her eyes so that she could see the sandstorm as it died.

“Yes!” she shrieked, pulling away and wiping at her mouth.

Imhotep turned to see his sandstorm gone, the plane still flying.

And then the plane engine caught fire.

Oh, fuck.

Lucy started to run towards the plane as it crashed, but Emma yanked her back again. “I’m going to kill you for this,” Lucy hissed.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll try, princess.”

Lucy yanked herself away from Emma. “Nasty little people like you always get their comeuppance,” she snapped. “Always.”

God, she hoped that the others were okay. Please, please be okay.

 

* * *

 

Rufus yanked himself free of the seat. “Everyone all right?”

“Do I fucking look all right?” Amy snapped. She was hanging upside down from one of the broken wings. “I don’t suppose anybody could get me down if it’s not too much trouble!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jiya said. “Hold your horses.”

Wyatt stumbled away from the crash and promptly threw up. Flynn rubbed his back. Rufus rolled his eyes. Honestly. So married.

“Hey, Mason, good flying.” He’d kept the plane in the air longer than Rufus could have.

There was no answer.

Rufus turned to look at Mason, still in the pilot’s seat. “Connor?”

Mason was still. His eyes were closed.

It felt like a hand was squeezing Rufus’s heart tight. “Connor.” He shook him. “Connor!”

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Jiya’s hand.

“Six,” she whispered.

“No.” Rufus shook his head. “No, no, this isn’t fate, I reject fate, I reject—this, whatever bullshit this is, he can’t—Connor, come on, you have to wake up, we have to get Lucy—Connor—”

Jiya gently pulled him away. “He died a hero,” she said quietly. “The way that he wanted.”

His eyesight went blurry as the tears came. “No. He shouldn’t have had to go at all.”

Jiya pulled him into her arms. “I can see him,” she whispered. “I can see between the realms now and oh, Rufus, he’s okay. He’s at peace. He’s okay.”

Rufus pulled back. “Wait. You can see into the realm of the dead now?”

Jiya nodded. “Yes?”

The beginnings of an idea started to take root in Rufus’s mind. “What else can you do now?”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt and Flynn were digging at the rocks that covered the entrance to the tunnel they needed to get to the statue of Horus. Amy was helping by instructing them.

Well, for a given value of ‘helping’, anyway.

“Take the large ones first,” she ordered. “And take them from the top, not the bottom, otherwise they’ll all slide—and put your backs into it!”

Flynn and Wyatt simultaneously turned around and glared at her.

Amy cleared her throat. “Right. So. Just… carry on, then.”

She turned away, inspecting the walls. Rufus and Jiya were talking in low voices in the corner, something about Jiya’s new powers as the Head of the Medjai? If it saved their bacon and Lucy, Amy didn’t really care where these powers came from or how they worked.

Huh. That was a cool image. A pharaoh or something, looked like he was doing a dance, maybe? There were colored, jeweled beetles all over him. Amy wondered what they symbolized. It looked familiar, almost, like it was showing her an image of something she’d seen before. Interesting.

She tilted her head. Hmm. It looked like these bugs came off.

Amy pride one off easily, holding it in the palm of her hand. “Hey, guys, look at this, it’s almost like a jeweled version of…”

The shell of the beetle broke open and the scarab emerged from hibernation, biting its way into the palm of her flesh and burrowing into her arm, literally eating itself a tunnel up her body towards her brain.

Pain, unimaginable and horrifying pain, shot through her and she screamed.

Everyone turned to her. “What is it?” Wyatt asked.

“My arm!” Amy shrieked. “It’s in my arm!”

Flynn ripped her sleeve open, exposing the bulge of the bug eating its way.

Wyatt turned away and threw up again.

“Rufus, Jiya, hold her!” Flynn barked.

“Get it out!” Amy shrieked, panicking. She didn’t want to die like this she didn’t want to die like this _she didn’t want to die like this_ — “Get it out of me!”

Flynn pulled out his knife.

“Not like that!” Amy screamed.

Flynn speared the bug with his knife, cutting through Amy’s skin simultaneously, and flicked the bug away. Then he snatched up Wyatt’s gun from Wyatt’s gun belt around his waist, and shot the bug as it came running for them.

Amy slumped against the wall, practically hyperventilating. Oh, fuck. Oh holy fuck. Oh fucking god thank fuck oh _God_.

Jiya pressed her hands to the wound. “Hold still. I think I can manipulate the threads enough for this.”

“The threads?”

“Of life,” Jiya said.

Amy watched in shock as her injured arm began to heal itself.

“Having lived so many lifetimes in my mind, and already having a gift, I can see the threads that make up this world and the next,” Jiya explained.

“Do you think you could use that to fight Imhotep?” Flynn asked.

Jiya looked up at him. “That is the idea. I think that’s why Denise let herself die. She… she knew she wasn’t strong enough. But I was already strong from my gift. She thought—she thought I’d stand a chance.”

Amy flexed her arm. Huh. Good as new. “Thanks, Jiya.”

“Let’s get going,” Flynn said. “That gunshot will have warned Imhotep that we’re coming. We don’t have a lot of time.”

Wyatt wiped off his mouth and accepted the canteen of water that Amy handed him. “Thanks.”

“This place is full of booby traps,” she warned. “If—if one of them gets me and I don’t make it—”

“You will,” Wyatt said at once.

“But if I don’t,” Amy insisted. “Look after Lucy for me. You and Flynn both. Okay? Promise me you’ll save her.”

Wyatt gripped her shoulder. “I’d die for her if that’s what it took, Amy.”

Amy nodded. “Now let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

 

* * *

 

The gunshot echoed through the massive chamber. Lucy jumped, looking around.

“Wyatt,” she breathed. Wyatt had a gun—he was alive, and hopefully Flynn and Amy with him.

Imhotep didn’t look too pleased about that. He walked over to a wall that held the carvings of two priests and blew some dust on them. “ _Shatay wapey ku ra eck,_ ” he chanted.

On cue, the stone began to crack—and two mummified priests began to force their way out of the wall.

Lucy swallowed around the sudden lump of fear in her throat. “Egyptologists never wrote about this,” she noted.

The two priests bowed to Imhotep. She couldn’t help but notice how twisted their bodies were, as if they’d been tortured before death. Imhotep inclined his head in acknowledgement of their respect. “ _Wake the others, and kill the intruders._ ”

The mummies started to stumble off.

Lucy had had just about enough of people trying to kill her friends, her family, and her boyfriends (well all right so she hadn’t straight up _asked_ them to be her boyfriends but surely they didn’t think she went around kissing people willy-nilly). She stormed towards Imhotep, ready to wring his goddamn neck with her bare hands.

Then she heard Emma’s gun cock. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Lucy froze.

She heard the smile in Emma’s voice. “Good princess.”

Then the butt of the gun came crashing down on Lucy’s head and her world went black.

 

* * *

 

Flynn stepped out into the next chamber—it was dark, and he couldn’t see anything, but he could tell it was the biggest chamber they’d run into yet.

There, up in the corner, he saw it: a mirror, like the one that Lucy had used.

“Wyatt.” He pointed at the mirror.

Wyatt cocked his gun, aimed carefully, and fired.

The bullet hit the mirror and spun, tilting to catch the light. The light bounced from mirror to mirror, just like in the preparation room, until the entire room was lit up in…

“Gold,” Rufus blurted out in surprise.

They were standing in a room the size of a town square, and it was filled to the absolute brim with treasure.

“Oh fuck yes!” Amy whooped, dashing down. “Can you see?”

“Yup,” Flynn said.

“Can you believe—”

“Yup,” Wyatt said.

“Can we just—”

“No!” Everyone said simultaneously.

Amy pouted.

They moved through the room carefully. One wrong move and—

The floor shifted.

Flynn looked at Wyatt. Wyatt looked right back at him. More bugs?

A mummified hand burst out of the floor in front of them. Then one to the right. Then one to the left. Then—

“What are these?” Rufus asked, jumping out of the way as the mummies climbed out of the floor towards them.

“Priests,” Jiya answered. “Imhotep’s priests.”

“So target practice,” Wyatt said, his cocksure attitude coming back in full force as he fired away—a sure sign, to Flynn, that after all they’d been through, Wyatt was seriously scared out of his mind.

Flynn wanted to tell him not to worry. That he’d make sure that Wyatt was safe, and that Lucy was freed. But this wasn’t the right moment.

“This way,” he directed, leading them down the corridor that would hopefully take them to the statue of Horus.

Hopefully.

 

* * *

 

They were firing at the mummies as best they could, but only Wyatt and Amy could wield guns properly. Rufus was trying with Mason’s guns, poor guy, but he’d clearly never really used one before. They were being chased back through the tunnel, Wyatt and Amy in the rear and walking backwards with the guns so they could fire.

“There you are!” Rufus panted as they emerged at the base of Horus. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere, you couldn’t have been a little easier to find? Maybe some arrows pointing the way?”

Jiya dove for the base of the statue, feeling along it. “There must be a catch to open it without getting hit with acid,” she said frantically.

Amy pulled out a stick of dynamite. “Hey Flynn, nice scruff.”

“What?”

Amy used Flynn’s scruff on his cheek to light the dynamite. Flynn winced in pain and glared at her. “Time to close the door!” she shouted, and flung the dynamite down the tunnel, blowing up the mummies. Or, well, some of them anyway.

“Do you think that bought us enough time?” Wyatt asked Flynn.

“Got it!” Jiya crowed, opening the chamber. She reached in and pulled out a gleaming, golden book. “Ah-ha!”

“Great, let’s go,” Wyatt said.

Mummies were already heading down the tunnel after them again. “We’re going to be overwhelmed,” Rufus said.

“I have one more stick,” Amy said, drawing out her last stick of dynamite.

“We’re not going to make it, not with so many of them,” Wyatt said, realizing it even as he spoke the words aloud.

They weren’t going to make it. It was sheer numbers.

Flynn grabbed Wyatt, pressing his hand to Wyatt’s cheek. “ _Volim te_ ,” he told him, his voice low and rough.

Before Wyatt could ask what the hell that meant, why it was making his heart speed up, Flynn kissed him.

It was like pouring fire into his lungs. Flynn kissed him slick and hot, desperate—and then he was pulling away. "Save our girl."

He was out of Wyatt’s arms, diving into the mass of rotting, bandaged bodies, yelling, distracting them, pulling them away from Wyatt and the others.

It felt like something vital was tearing itself out of Wyatt’s chest. He lunged forward, but Rufus and Amy were already grabbing him, yanking him back.

“Don’t!” Amy shouted. “Wyatt, no, he wouldn’t—”

“Go!” Flynn yelled, his voice raw and deep, and the others were tugging at Wyatt, yanking him down the other passageway, Amy was lighting more dynamite—

“No!” Wyatt shouted. His voice didn’t even sound like his own.

Amy was already throwing the stick.

Wyatt’s ears rang as the dynamite went off, obliterating the mummies.

He couldn’t hear Flynn.

Rufus and Jiya were still yanking at him, dragging him away. All he could think was what was he going to tell Lucy? How was he going to tell her?

Why did he have to keep being the one left behind? Why did he have to keep watching the people he cared about die? He deserved to die, he should’ve been the one, he hadn’t—he’d been agonizing over whether what he felt was right when he should have just said, he should’ve told Flynn—he should’ve…

“What did he say?” he asked Jiya.

“It was Croatian, I don’t know what it means,” Jiya lied.

It didn’t matter. Wyatt thought he knew anyway.

_Save our girl._

How was he going to tell Lucy?


	14. Chapter 14

“I can’t do this,” Jiya whispered. “Rufus, I can’t.”

He took her face into his hands. “Hey. Yes, you can. You can do whatever you set your mind to. There’s power in you, Jiya, you said you could feel it.”

“But what if I fail?”

“You won’t.”

“Guys.” Wyatt snagged a sword off of a statue. “We have to go. Amy will be in position.”

It was just the four of them now. Four of them against a magic-wielding undead high priest. She shouldn’t be the one doing this. It should be Denise. The woman who raised her, who had taken in all of them, helped out Lucy and Amy when their mom abandoned them, was patient with Flynn throughout his grieving over Lorena and Iris.

But Denise was gone. Now it was just her.

What could she possibly do against someone like Imhotep?

“Everyone good on the plan?” Wyatt asked.

Rufus nodded at Wyatt, then kissed Jiya on the forehead. “You can do this. I know it.”

Jiya closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Rufus believed in her. His life was in her hands. Lucy’s life was in her hands.

Whether she could do this or not wasn’t the question anymore. She had to do this. She had to.

When she opened them again, her eyes were golden.

 

* * *

 

Lucy woke up slowly, her arms cramped and her neck sore. Ugh. She’d slept just plain awful. Why—

Then she opened her eyes.

And it all came rushing back that she had slept awful because she’d been knocked out, and because she was now lying on a sacrificial stone slab with her hands cuffed above her head.

God dammit.

She twisted her wrists, tugging on the chains, testing them. No dice.

Emma was helping to set up the ceramic jars while Imhotep carried a mummified body towards the altar—the body of Anck-su-namun, Lucy guessed.

She knew that she should probably be frightened, and she was but she was also angry, angry in that heart pounding, reckless kind of way that pushed all other emotions aside and filled her veins with fire.

“You coward,” she hissed at Emma. “My mother hired you, she trusted you!”

Emma arched an eyebrow at her. “As if it’s my fault what happened? He would have gotten to her anyway.”

“You don’t know that. You helped him. And for what? Do you really think he’s going to spare you? Do you really think that when the whole world is engulfed in darkness that you’ll somehow be spared?”

“You really think that you know what I want?” Emma replied, her face going stiff with anger.

Lucy leaned in as best she could with the cuffs still on. “I think that you’re a spineless worm and you don’t even know what you want. You want to feel powerful but you don’t know how to do that or what you’d even do with it if you got that power. You’re desperate for some kind of agency in your life and so you’ll follow this asshole because maybe he’ll finally give you what you want from yourself.”

Emma glared at her, her lips pressed together in fury until they were white. “As if you know what it’s like,” she said, but her voice was shaky, “to fight for anything. Famous mother, rich father, everything handed to you.”

Emma whipped around and strode away before Lucy could say anything more—but she didn’t have to anyway. She knew that she’d gotten to Emma, and if that was the last thing she got to do before being gutted alive, it was a pretty good way to go.

Imhotep walked over to them, the Book of the Dead open in his hands. For all of his pretty words to her before, now that he had her ready to be sacrificed he wasn’t even looking at her.

Lucy rolled her eyes. Some men…

She kept glancing around as Imhotep began to chant, many of his mummified priests coming over and forming a circle, bowing rhythmically. She’d heard a gunshot, and that had to be at least one of her friends. Where were they? Had the mummified priests gotten to them? Had the flesh-eating bugs emerged again?

She strained her neck trying to see, trying to get a glimpse of perhaps Flynn or Wyatt, or even Rufus or Jiya, creeping around to try and get to her.

But there was no one.

Imhotep’s chanting intensified, reaching a fever pitch, and suddenly—the mummy next to her screamed, jolting awake.

Lucy screamed as well, fear flooding her. She yanked at the chains. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to give this bastard any more victories, any more power.

Imhotep raised the knife. “ _With your death, Anck-su-namun will live! And we will rule the world together!_ ”

“Lucy!”

She turned her head and Imhotep whipped around in time to see Amy standing at the top of the stairs, golden Book of Amun Ra held aloft. “I got it, Lucy!” she yelled. “I’ve got it!”

“Open it and read it then!” Lucy yelled as Imhotep, knife still in hand, began to march up the stairs towards Amy.

“Um…” Amy tried opening the book. “It needs the key!”

“It’s in his robes!” Lucy yelled. Why was it just Amy? Where was everyone else?

Then she heard a yell—two yells—and felt something cut through one of her chains.

She sat up and turned to see Wyatt, wielding some sword he’d picked up somewhere, smiling softly at her. “Hey.”

Lucy grabbed him and yanked him to her, hugging him with all of her might. They were safe, they were—

She pulled back. Looked around.

Rufus was yelling and hacking—horribly—at some mummies, Emma was barreling towards him with murder in her eyes, and Amy was using the book to smack Imhotep upside the head but…

“Flynn?” she looked at Wyatt. “Where’s Flynn?”

Wyatt’s face said it all.

“No.” No, he couldn’t—Flynn was more capable than any of them, he was the only one who really understood the threat they were dealing with, he was—he’d promised—

Wyatt pulled her back in, and Lucy buried her face into his chest. “He told me to take care of you,” Wyatt said, his voice hoarse. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

Lucy held onto Wyatt even more tightly. She’d already lost her mother. Now she’d lost one of the men she loved, and she hadn’t even had the chance to tell him so.

She was getting Wyatt and her sister out of there. She didn’t care what she had to do to make it happen.

 

* * *

 

Rufus wanted it known that he was not a fighter. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

But damn if he wasn’t going to start swinging a sword at some mummies if that was what it took.

The one good thing about these suckers was that they were slow and clumsy, even if there were a lot of them.

He didn’t expect Emma to still be there, though. Or for her to start shooting at him.

“You know you’re crazy, right?” Rufus bellowed as Emma grabbed a sword of her own. “He’s going to kill you too or something once you’re no longer of use to him.”

“Who says I won’t keep being of use?” Emma replied.

She swung the sword hard at Rufus, and oh damn, she knew what she was doing. Rufus barely managed to block her blow, trying to keep up as Emma swung hard at him again and again.

Lucy and Wyatt were wasting time _hugging_ , of all things, which meant that some mummies definitely got the drop on Wyatt and literally yanked his feet out from under him. The Ank-su-namun mummy had vanished somewhere, and Amy was using the golden book to fend off Imhotep with a sword.

Things did not look good.

“ _Imhotep!_ ”

Jiya’s voice rang out.

Rufus grinned. That was his girl.

Imhotep turned, glaring down at Jiya as she stood at the base of the stairs, fingers splayed wide, eyes golden. “ _Your time of playing with the threads of life is over_ ,” Jiya warned him.

Rufus had no idea what she was saying but evidently Lucy did because she was grinning in delight despite still being chained to the altar by one hand.

“ _Medjai_ ,” Imhotep hissed turning away from a bruised Amy and stalking towards Jiya.

“Hey, Lucy!” Amy said, holding up the key she’d pickpocketed from Imhotep. “I got it!”

“Then start translating!” Lucy yelled.

Rufus watched, heart in his throat, as Imhotep raised his hand towards Jiya.

The mummies in the room seemed to be doing something strange—they were twitching, almost as though two forces were tugging them back and forth.

Then in between Imhotep and Jiya, the room exploded in light.

Emma quickly backed away and then ran out of the room. The mummies in the room shrieked. Wyatt clapped his hand over Lucy’s eyes.

Jiya and Imhotep were locked together, eyes blazing at each other, as the magic of generations swirled in the room between them, shoving and twisting, each trying to overpower the other. Imhotep clearly had more experience, but Jiya was literally filled with the power of generations of Medjai, and she was holding her own.

“That’s it!” Rufus yelled. “Kick his ass, Jiya!”

The mummies, however, were losing their goddamn minds.

They were charging at each other, trying to rip each other apart with their bare hands. Almost as if Jiya and Imhotep’s battle was playing out in them.

Rufus turned, thinking he should go after Emma—but honestly, who cared, so long as she wasn’t here in the way, causing more problems.

He had to keep those mummies away from Jiya.

 

* * *

 

Jiya could feel it coursing through her—the stored up magic of the Medjai, passed from one leader to the next, ready to be used precisely at this time, when Imhotep rose again.

She gritted her teeth. She could feel the threads of life and death wrapped around and between her fingers like a cat’s cradle. Imhotep was manipulating them, yanking on them, but so could she. He had taken Denise from them, Lucy and Amy’s mother, Mason, Dave. He wouldn’t take another soul.

_I am the Head Medjai. I punish those who threaten the land of Egypt and her people. I strip the power of those who use magic for ill. The strength of my ancestors is in me. And you will kill no more._

Jiya yanked on the threads with all of her might.

For her family.

 

* * *

 

Lucy rubbed at her wrist as Wyatt freed her other hand. He smiled at her. “Mummies, right?”

Then someone grabbed her and yanked her away.

Anck-su-namun.

She’d gotten a hold of a knife and Lucy ducked out of the way just in time. “Amy!” she shouted. “Are you going to help or are you just going to stand there?”

“I’m trying to find the right inscription!” Amy shouted back. “Ooh, maybe it’s this one. Uh… Rasheem… Rasheem oola Kashka!”

The walls slid open—and more mummies emerged.

These ones were armed.

“What the hell!?” Wyatt yelped.

“Oh shit,” Rufus said.

Lucy ducked another stab with the knife, turning and running as fast as she could, Anck-su-namun hot on her heels. “Amy! You’ve woken them up!”

“Thanks, I hadn’t noticed!”

“Well find the inscription that’ll let you control them!”

Pillars were getting knocked down from Jiya and Imhotep’s magic, the mummies were either going crazy or attacking Wyatt and Rufus.

“Uh…” Amy was dodging the falling rock. “I can’t—I can’t figure out this symbol, it’s, um, it’s like a…”

“Describe it!” Lucy yelled. Anck-su-namun grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her back, exposing her throat. Lucy grabbed the mummy’s wrist just in time to stop the blade from coming down.

“It’s some kind of bird!” Amy yelled. “Oh! It’s a stork!”

Magical energy was crackling around the room now, Jiya’s and Imhotep’s faces contorted. Rufus was getting his ass thoroughly kicked, and Wyatt wasn’t managing too well either against such formidable foes. There was a massive wound in his side that was soaking his shirt with blood and he clearly wasn’t used to fighting with a sword as opposed to a gun—Lucy could only guess that they’d run out of ammunition at some point.

Lucy struggled hard to keep the knife away from her face but Anck-su-namun was strong, and filled with fury.

The image of a stork—Lucy knew that one. “Ahmenophus!” she yelled.

“Got it!” Amy replied. “Hootash im Ahmenophus!”

The mummies fighting Rufus and Wyatt froze.

Then they turned and bowed to Amy.

Imhotep noticed that the mummies had stopped. “Im Yub Set Na!” he yelled.

Jiya pressed her advantage while he was distracted, flinging her hands out, screaming with effort.

Imhotep stumbled back and Amy held up the book again. Lucy could feel her arm start to shake as Anck-su-namun continued to press the knife towards her. She didn’t have much time left, she couldn’t hold on much longer.

“Fa-Kooshka!” Amy yelled, pointing towards them. “Fa-Kooshka Anck-u-namun!”

“ _No!_ ” Imhotep yelled. He gave out a burst of power that flung Jiya to the side and he began to stride towards Amy.

The mummies, however, were striding towards Lucy and Anck-su-namun.

Lucy stumbled back out of the way as Anck-su-namun turned and ran—but these mummies were faster, stronger.

They set upon her like a pack of wolves.

Anck-su-namun let out a scream as she once again died, this time hacked to death by swords.

Imhotep gave a scream of rage that seemed to echo through the very foundations of the city. Then he turned and rounded on Amy.

“Hey!” Wyatt yelled, swinging the sword so hard it chopped Imhotep’s arm off.

Lucy almost gagged.

“Pick on someone your own size!” Wyatt said.

Imhotep smiled at him. “ _If that’s what you wish_.”

Rufus helped Jiya to struggle to her feet as Imhotep picked Wyatt up, throwing him across the room.

Imhotep then picked up his own arm and began to mutter incantations, knitting the flesh back together.

Lucy thought she might be sick.

“ _Now for you, Medjai_.”

Jiya’s eyes still glowed with power, but she was leaning heavily on Rufus.

Rufus gently directed Jiya to lean against the wall instead. Lucy tore across the room and grabbed the book from Amy. “We have to make him mortal,” she explained. “It’s the only way we can kill him.”

“I’ll help the others,” Amy said, grabbing a discarded sword.

“You want her?” Rufus yelled. “You gotta get through me!”

Imhotep sent a blast of energy that knocked Rufus off his feet, slamming him into the wall where he lay still, unmoving.

Wyatt charged at Imhotep with a yell, but was caught by the throat. “ _Now it’s your turn_ ,” Imhotep growled, and then—oh fuck—his jaw began to unhinge and stretch down, down…

Lucy flipped through the book, frantic. She couldn’t lose another person, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t—

Jiya staggered to her feet and roared something, and Imhotep dropped Wyatt, who sank to the ground, either unconscious or simply dazed from the throttling but either way down for the count. Imhotep turned on Jiya again, sending another blast of magic at her.

“Lucy, hurry!” Amy yelled, taking a running leap and flinging herself at Imhotep, slashing at him.

“The pressure isn’t helping!” Lucy snapped, running her fingers over the inscriptions. The gods wouldn’t want their laws of life and death messed with life this, there had to be something to stop him, something to strip him of his powers.

Amy yelped as Imhotep backhanded her, sending her rolling across the ground. Jiya scrambled in front of Amy, yelling something else, and then Imhotep was blasted backwards.

“It’s draining,” Jiya admitted, chest heaving. “The—the magic, I’ve only got so m-much of it, it’s draining out of me and he’s got so much more—”

Imhotep got to his feet, glaring at Jiya. “ _Pathetic_.”

Then his eyes turned to Lucy.

“No—” Amy tried to get to her feet but fell back to her knees, still too dizzy and hurt. “Get back here—stay away from her—”

“ _You lead them_ ,” Imhotep snarled. Lucy stumbled backwards, book clutched in her hands. “ _You should have been the perfect vessel for her. You will pay for this._ ”

Rufus was still out cold and Wyatt had his eye open but glazed, gasping in great gulps of air. Neither of them could help her.

She had to find the incantation, she had to—

Jiya gave a final, vicious scream, flinging her hand towards Imhotep.

Ropes of light appeared, wrapping around Imhotep, binding him where he still, holding him back.

“Run!” Jiya screamed. It was clearly taking everything in her to hold him back. “I can’t—it’s draining out of me—you have to run, Lucy, run!”

“I’m not leaving you!” She would figure this out, she just had to read fast enough—

Imhotep gave an inhuman roar and wrenched his arms forward, breaking the ropes of light. Jiya screamed in pain and collapsed on the ground, out cold. Amy dragged herself over to Jiya, checking for a pulse.

“She’s not breathing!” Amy yelled, starting to give mouth to mouth.

Imhotep started advancing on her again. Lucy took another step back—and felt her back hit the wall.

Shit.

She looked down, scanning the hieroglyphs—knowing she’d die but if she could make him mortal the others could kill him, they could make it—

Wyatt managed to prop himself onto his elbow, his eyes wide with fear. Then he looked at something else—something out of Lucy’s line of sight. “Get to her!” he yelled.

Lucy didn’t know what that meant, all she knew was that Imhotep was only a foot or two away, murder in his eyes.

And then there was someone in between them. Someone bloodied, his robes torn, and tall enough to almost block Imhotep from her view.

Lucy’s heart leapt into her throat. “Flynn?”

Flynn glared at Imhotep. “Stay. Away. From her.”

Imhotep roared at him, reaching for him, but Flynn dodged, swinging the sword just enough to slice across Imhotep’s chest—just a flesh wound. Imhotep lunged for him and he did it again, retreating a few steps.

He was leading Imhotep away from her, Lucy realized. He was barely able to stand, cut and bruised over what looked like every inch of him, but he had enough strength to taunt Imhotep, keep him away from her.

Wyatt was struggling to his feet. “Lucy,” he yelled, his voice hoarse still from the choking. “Lucy—run—we’ll hold him off—”

She shook her head. No, she could do this.

She looked down at the book, one last time.

No, no, no, no…

There.

There!

“Imhotep!” Lucy screamed.

Imhotep turned around. Flynn’s face was devastated. But Lucy could already feel the triumph running in her veins.

“Kadeesh mal, kadeesh mal,” she chanted. “Parad oos, parad oos!”

A blast of something almost like wind hit Imhotep square in the chest, and for a moment there were two Imhoteps—the solid one, and another, ghostly one behind him. Both screamed in agony, and then the ghostly one was vanishing, drawn away as if by invisible tethers, yanked from his mortal form.

“Flynn!” Lucy yelled. “He’s mortal!”

Flynn didn’t waste a second. He adjusted his grip and ran his sword straight through Imhotep’s stomach.

Blood spurted out, and Imhotep stared down in shock. He stumbled forward, finally, truly feeling the effects of his wounds.

Flynn limped away from him, hurrying over to Lucy. “You’re okay?” he asked. “ _Moja ljubav_ , you’re all right?”

“I should be asking you that,” Lucy panted. “You look like one big bruise.”

Imhotep stumbled sideways into the pool of water by the altar. It looked almost—it could have been a trick of the light, but—Lucy could have sworn she saw ghostly hands reaching up and grabbing him. Hands attached to faces, many faces—some of which she knew.

The faces of his victims.

Imhotep looked straight at her.

“ _Death_ ,” he said as the hands dragged him down, “ _is only the beginning._ ”

Then he sank into the pool and was gone.

 

* * *

 

Emma wasn’t wasting another second in this place, oh no. Not with the damn Lucy-led tribe causing problems for Imhotep. She didn’t know how it would play out. Imhotep would probably win, but either way, she was getting the hell out of dodge.

She gathered as much treasure into a bag as she could and dragged it outside, hitching it onto the back of a very ornery camel. She then went back for another bag.

Jesus Christ, gold was heavy. She could still hear the sounds of battle at first, feel the temple shaking, but then all went still.

Emma frowned. Was it over?

There was a kind of stone statue jutting out of the wall. She hooked her bag of gold over it, resting her aching shoulder, ears straining, trying to figure out who had won.

Then the stone moved.

It wasn’t a statue, she realized. It was a lever.

The lever sank down under the weight of the sack, and the entire city around her gave a massive shudder.

Then stone panel began to slide down from the ceiling, closing off the doorways.

Oh _shit_.

 

* * *

 

Flynn grabbed Lucy to him, kissing the top of her head. He’d thought that he would be too late. It had taken him forever to fight all those mummies and he hurt everywhere. He was pretty sure he’d broken something, somewhere, and he needed first aid soon or his cuts would get horribly infected. But he’d managed to fight them off and get to the chamber.

When he’d seen Wyatt lying on the ground, and Imhotep advancing on Lucy, he’d seen red.

But now, they were safe. They were all safe.

Amy was doing chest compressions and breathing into Jiya’s mouth. “Come on!” she ordered desperately. “Come on, Jiya, please!”

For a long, agonizing moment, there was nothing.

 _No_ , Flynn thought. Their order was already so devastated. They couldn’t lose the last of them. All Jiya had wanted was to be normal, to live a normal life. Now that Imhotep was gone, she could.

But only if she would breathe.

Jiya’s eyes flew open, her chest convulsing and she coughed, then turned onto her side and vomited.

“Oh thank God.” Amy helped Jiya to sit and held her hair back.

Wyatt staggered over to Rufus, shaking him awake and helping him to his feet. Both men looked like shit. “You good?”

Rufus gave him a weak thumbs up.

Wyatt nodded, clapping Rufus on the back. Then he turned and somehow found the strength to fucking _sprint_ at Flynn and Lucy, yanking the both of them into him.

“You fucking bastard,” he yelled into Flynn’s chest. “You don’t pull—you do some shit like that again and I’m going to break your goddamn nose.”

“I love you too,” Flynn replied dryly, before he even realized what he was saying.

Wyatt pulled back, staring up at him.

Lucy was staring at him too.

Flynn realized what he’d said—and not in Croatian, and not when he thought he was going to die and wouldn’t get another chance.

“I—”

Wyatt got a determined look on his face and grabbed Flynn’s robes, yanking him in and kissing him. “I’m going to suck at this,” Wyatt warned, pulling away, “but I love you. And I—I don’t know what it means or—or if I’m finished panicking about it because trust me that’s what I’ve been doing for a few weeks now but—” Wyatt’s eyes grew wet. “But I thought you’d died.”

He buried his face in Flynn’s chest again, and Flynn could feel Wyatt’s hands shaking where they gripped his robes. Wyatt, who kept surviving—his wife, his legion, Bam Bam.

Lucy stepped in, making soothing noises. She was the only one of them not sporting several bruises and cuts. Flynn could see Jiya and Rufus hugging tightly while Amy inspected her own wounds and grimaced.

“What it means,” Lucy whispered, taking Wyatt’s face in hers, “is that you love him, and we love you. It doesn’t need to mean anything less or more than that.”

Wyatt brushed some of Lucy’s hair out of her face. “It was stupid of me to kiss you, when I first met you,” he said quietly, his voice and face raw and wrecked, “but fuck, I think even two seconds after meeting you I loved you.”

Flynn couldn’t agree more. Lucy was an easy person to love.

“And _you_ ,” she said, whirling around and glaring at Flynn. “You do _not_ get to just sacrifice yourself like that, you idiot, what kind of—”

She kept shouting into Flynn’s mouth as he kissed her, but when he pulled away she was smiling up at him, her eyes shining like the night sky. “It seems I’m fated to fall in love with stupid, impossible men,” she said, stroking his face gently with her fingers.

Flynn thought he might fall to his knees from the sheer depth of the emotion running through him. He’d once thought that he would never have a family again, that he’d lost love once and wasn’t worthy of a second chance.

And now…

Then the entire city around them started to shake.

Flynn jolted, staring around them. What the hell?

“The failsafe!” Jiya yelled in horror. “Someone must’ve set it off!”

There was no time to think, no time to discuss. Jiya got Rufus’s arm around her shoulders and started helping him towards the exit.

They were all wounded, especially the men, but Flynn would take another broken bone if it meant they all got out safely. He grabbed Lucy’s hand and got an arm around Wyatt, getting the other man to lean into him.

“Run!” he yelled at the others.

They didn’t need to be told twice.

 

* * *

 

They ran pell-mell through the temple. Amy skidded and tripped on a step, the Book of Amun Ra spilling out of her hands and falling into a pit of water. “Oh, shit.”

Lucy skidded to an outraged halt. “Amy! Amy you dropped the—I can’t believe—”

Then she started _wading into the water to get the book_.

“Jesus Christ!” Wyatt yelped. He and Flynn grabbed her and yanked her out of the water.

“It’s just right there!”

“There’s no time, what the fuck, Lucy—”

Rufus’s head still felt like it was being hit repeatedly with an ice pick, and his feet couldn’t seem to coordinate. “Jiya—Jiya, c’mon. I’m slowing you guys down too much.”

Jiya shook her head stubbornly. “No. No, we can make it. I’m not leaving you. We’re making it back together.”

Amy was in the lead, running ahead, double-checking their path was clear. “Through here!” she called.

Fuck, his head hurt. He’d been concussed pretty badly. Flynn looked like he was dead on his feet too but he was supporting Wyatt, who had a pretty nasty sword wound in his side. Lucy had Flynn’s hand caught up in hers and was running just a little ahead, looking like she’d drag them both if she had to.

They stumbled down back into the massive treasure room. The glint of the gold hurt Rufus’s eyes. God, everything hurt. Had it always been this hard to breathe?

Amy paused. “Can’t we just…?”

“No, Amy!” Lucy and Wyatt said simultaneously as Lucy grabbed Amy and dragged her away from the gold.

“Just up these steps!” Flynn yelled. The walls were sinking around them, picking up speed.

“Jiya please, you’re not going to make it.”

“No.” Jiya’s voice was tight with unshed tears. “No, you’re making it out of here.”

Amy darted under the stone and through the doorway first, yanking Lucy after her. Flynn helped Wyatt through next, then turned and took Rufus from Jiya, helping him get through.

Fuck, his vision was swimming. “I think—I think something broke inside,” he admitted. One of the times he’d been hit or thrown, he must’ve hurt an organ or something and it hadn’t broken the skin.

“We’ll get you out,” Flynn assured him.

“Wait!”

They all turned to see Emma, of all people, rushing through the treasure room towards them.

“She’s still in here?” Rufus asked, confused. Hadn’t she gotten the hell out of dodge?

“Treasure, of course,” Flynn muttered. “It’s why she joined the Medjai, she wanted us to tell her where this was.”

“Flynn, please, wait!”

“She doesn’t deserve it,” Wyatt hissed, his face hard with rage. “She led him to Bam Bam, she served him!”

Jiya took Rufus’s arm and wrapped it around her shoulders again, helping him limp away.

“Flynn…” Lucy said quietly.

Rufus could see a spasm of frustration and indecision cross Flynn’s face.

Then he ran and stuck his hand out underneath the stone, to Emma.

“Garcia!” Lucy shrieked. If Flynn kept his hand under there too much longer the stone would crush it.

“Emma, hurry!” Flynn yelled. “Take my hand!”

Emma was running, but she wasn’t fast enough, the stone was sinking—

Wyatt somehow gathered up his strength and rushed forward, grabbing Flynn and yanking him back just as the stone came down.

“I hate you so much,” Wyatt croaked. “You self-sacrificing bastard.”

On the other side of the stone, Rufus could hear Emma’s scream of rage and despair.

“Guys!” Amy yelled. “We have to move, now!”

Right. Move. Rufus could do that… he thought… but everything was still spinning…

That was when the room spun a final sickening time and went black.


	15. Chapter 15

Emma screamed in rage as the wall sank down in front of her. She didn’t actually blame Flynn for retracting his hand—or being yanked back by one of the others, she wasn’t sure exactly which one it was—she wouldn’t have been able to get to him in time anyway. She’d still been too far away.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why had she set that bag on the lever? Why—

She turned, running for another exit, only to have the wall slide down for that one too.

Another exit—another wall.

No way out.

The wall panels slid down into place, feet upon feet of solid stone sealing her in.

Entombing her.

Emma tried to keep her breathing even. This wasn’t the time to panic. This wasn’t—

And then the last stone slid into place, hitting the mirror and breaking it, all of the light in the room going out.

It was just her torch, now.

Emma swallowed. Okay, so the irony of being stuck in the darkness with the treasure she’d so craved was not lost on her. But she could get out. She would get out, before she starved to death. This was a huge room, plenty of oxygen. She could find a way to climb up, or something, chip away at the stone…

And then she heard it.

The scream of the beetles.

Emma turned, twisted, wielding her torch as they started to pour in from all sides, dark blue-black and chittering hungrily. No. No, no, no, no…

“Back!” she screamed. “Just stay back!”

Her torch began to splutter and go out, almost as though a wind was whipping around it.

After all, it was said that the scales of justice were strongest in the tombs, where the veil between this world and the afterlife was thinnest.

Emma felt terror, true terror, seize her throat for the first time in her life.

Her torch went out, and she screamed.

Emma died in darkness.

Seven.

 

* * *

 

“Rufus!” Jiya screamed as Rufus sank to the ground. “Flynn, please—something’s wrong—”

“He has some kind of internal injury,” Flynn said, ripping Rufus’s shirt open.

The skin was an awful purple and blue from bleeding beneath the skin.

Jiya sobbed. “No. No, he—he can’t—”

“We have to get out of here,” Flynn said. “Wyatt, help me.”

“I’m in better shape,” Amy said. She threw Rufus’s other arm over her shoulder. “I’ll help.”

Lucy got Wyatt’s arm around her shoulders, helping him along.

Could they really make it, injured as they were?

All around them, the stone pillars were falling, massive blocks missing them by inches. Amy and Flynn were running as fast as they could, Rufus suspended between them. Wyatt was sagging against her, stumbling, but she wasn’t going to let go—she wasn’t going to lose any of them, not when they were so close—

Sunlight. She could see sunlight.

Lucy found a burst of strength she hadn’t known she possessed and yanked Wyatt forward, dragging him out of the temple and onto the sand. “Amy!”

“I’m here!” Amy yelled.

Lucy turned around in time to see Flynn and Amy emerge with Rufus as the entire city began to crumble, sending up huge clouds of dust. Lucy fell to her knees as she was blasted with sand, blinded, reaching out for the others.

Someone was coughing, and she glimpsed Rufus on the ground, Jiya kneeling over him, using her body to shield his face. “Lucy!” Flynn yelled, and then she felt him practically crash into her and Wyatt, bracing himself, using his height to try and keep the worst of the blast from them.

Lucy buried her face into Flynn’s robes, trying to breathe through them, still holding onto Wyatt with her arm around his shoulders. For a moment, all was mayhem, the six of them in the midst of the tempest, battered on all sides.

And then it was gone.

Hamunaptra had sunk beneath the sand, almost as if it had never been there, taking all of its treasure and its stolen souls along with it.

Lucy coughed into Flynn’s robes, her nose and throat burning. She pulled away, blinking, wiping the sand from her eyes.

Flynn swayed on his feet and then fell to his knees, gasping and coughing. Lucy grabbed him, hanging on for dear life. Over his shoulder she could see Amy vomiting up bile and sand, and Jiya…

Jiya was shaking a still Rufus.

Lucy pulled away from Flynn and Wyatt, crawling over to Rufus and Jiya. “Is he…?”

Jiya’s face was streaked with tears. “F-Flynn knows b-battlefield medicine, but—but this is bad he—he won’t wake up…”

“If only I hadn’t dropped the book,” Amy coughed. “There was probably something in there that could’ve saved him.”

“Seven,” Jiya croaked. “My vision said seven, the last one was Emma, this shouldn’t—this shouldn’t—”

Lucy frowned, looking at Amy. “Magic,” she said slowly, an idea forming. “Magic could save Rufus.”

“Yes, but we have no spell book!” Amy protested.

“But we do have a Medjai,” Lucy replied.

She looked at Jiya. “Do you have anything left?”

“It could work,” Flynn said, helping Wyatt to his feet. “Head Medjai pass their soul from themselves to the next, gathering magic and memories. If Denise could pass her memories and power to you, Jiya, then you could pass your power onto Rufus. Use it to heal him.”

Jiya looked down at Rufus. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You just battled Imhotep,” Lucy said firmly. “Don’t make my mistake of not believing in yourself, Jiya. You got this.”

Jiya took a deep breath, and placed one hand over Rufus’s eyes, the other over his stomach.

Her eyes rolled back into her head.

For a moment there was nothing, and Lucy’s heart sank. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe Jiya was all out of juice. Maybe…

And then Jiya’s hands started to glow.

Rufus’s body jerked, and then Lucy saw the bruising on his body begin to fade and recede. The cuts sealed themselves. The bump on his head disappeared.

Jiya inhaled sharply—and collapsed to the ground.

And Rufus’s eyes opened.

He gasped in a breath, and Lucy realized that she was crying. “Rufus?”

Rufus struggled to sit up, staring around. “Wh—where are we, what the hell happened?”

Lucy started laughing and crying all at once, flinging her arms around Rufus in a hug. Then Amy was next, and Wyatt.

Then Rufus saw Jiya.

“Jiya!” He hefted her up into his arms. “Jiya, love…”

Flynn crouched down next to Rufus, wincing as it aggravated his wounds. “She’s breathing. She used everything she had, just give her a moment.”

For a few moments, Jiya just breathed in Rufus’s arms. Then she stirred, her eyes blinking open slowly.

It took her a second to realize that she was staring up at Rufus. Then her eyes went wide and a massive, disbelieving smile bloomed on her face and she tackled him to the ground, hugging him.

“You’re okay,” she sobbed. “Rufus, you’re okay.”

“Told you we’d make it,” he replied, rubbing her back soothingly.

Jiya kissed him, and Lucy laughed and looked away. Might as well give them what privacy they could.

Amy sighed. “I'm going to go see about fetching those camels for us,” she said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the animals. She mouthed  _go get 'em_ at Lucy, winking, and then jogged away before Lucy could get her back or something.

Lucy turned to look at Wyatt, taking in the blood and his pale expression. “You look like you’re going to pass out,” she noted.

“I wouldn’t say no to some first aid,” Wyatt replied, grimacing down at himself. His shirt was sticking to his side, brown and red with blood. “Got any more of that juice for me, Jiya?”

Still kissing her, Rufus flipped Wyatt off.

Flynn didn’t look much better, with all the scratches and bruises from the mummies. Amy was sporting quite a few bruises herself. They’d all need to take a day to bandage each other up. Lucy, ironically, hadn’t gotten so much as a scratch other than her head hurting from where Anck-su-namun had yanked on her hair.

But after that, they could start to head out for home. Figure out what to do now that her mother was dead, and the head of the Cairo Museum was also gone. Figure out the new balance between her and Flynn and Wyatt.

Then she remembered—Flynn and Jiya were Medjai.

She looked at Flynn. “Do you—your oaths, your order. Do you have to go… back to that?”

“Imhotep is vanquished,” Flynn replied. “He was the reason we endured for so long. Now that he’s gone… there’s no reason for us anymore. Jiya’s magic is spent. She can live normally.”

“And you?” Lucy’s breath seemed to grow solid in her lungs, seizing her up and weighing her down from the inside.

Flynn cupped her cheek in his hand, his fingers lightly brushing over her skin. “I go wherever you go,” he told her.

Lucy launched herself forward, kissing him, screaming in delight and surprise when he got his arms around her waist and spun her around. When they finally stopped she grabbed Wyatt, yanking him in and holding on tight to both of them, not caring that her feet were still dangling several inches off the ground, knowing only that she was holding onto both of them and never letting go.

“Jesus,” Amy grumbled, coming back with some camels in tow. “You’re all celebrating? We almost died! We didn’t get any treasure! We’re going home empty handed, again!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Wyatt replied.

He blushed like a fire hydrant as first Lucy, and then Flynn, kissed him.

“Ugh.” Amy rolled her eyes. “And those two are still rolling around, oh my God. How come I’m the only single one!?” She looked at one of her camels. “You want a kiss? Huh? You want a little kissy-wissy?”

The camel bayed at her.

Jiya finally pulled away from Rufus, smiling. “Guess what,” she whispered.

“What.”

“I had a vision a short bit ago. Before I lost my powers. The camel Amy’s got?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s got a sack of gold that Emma put on it.”

“…should we tell the others?”

They looked at Amy, who was now hugging Lucy, and Flynn, who was fussing over Wyatt’s wounds as if Flynn himself wasn’t literally covered from head to toe in blood.

“…nah.”

They patched one another up as best they could and climbed onto the camels. Rufus and Jiya were sharing one camel, Flynn and Lucy were on another, Wyatt was on his own so that his wound wouldn’t get jostled by anyone else, and Amy was on her own because she was apparently doomed to be loveless and alone, stop laughing Lucy, you have two of them now, it’s not fair.

“You know,” Lucy said as they set off, “I hear that Lord Carnahan is launching an expedition…”

“No,” Wyatt said. “No, no, I did not sign up for that, we are not dealing with any mummies again, please and thank you.”

“Aww, Wyatt, where’s your sense of adventure?” Flynn teased.

“Keep it up and I’m not letting you fuck me,” Wyatt said, just low enough that only Lucy and Flynn could hear.

“I look forward to being around normal people,” Rufus said sarcastically.

“Does anyone have any idea what kind of shape Cairo will be in?” Lucy asked. “It was filled with a crazy mob last we checked…”

“Slow down, cowboy,” Flynn replied to Wyatt, keeping his voice low as well. “How about we work you up to that—”

“I think everyone’s fine,” Rufus said to Lucy.

“Fine!? _Fine_!?”

“Ah, bickering,” Amy said to nobody in particular. “My favorite thing to listen to while riding a camel in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

The camels, impervious to the arguing, continued to carry them on through the desert back to Cairo.

And hidden in the bag on the back of Amy’s camel, the gold gleamed in the sunset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might. Just might. If people persuade me. Write a happy fluffy smutty epilogue as a reward for all the cliffhangers/deaths I put you through. Maybe.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all asked for an epilogue and, well, I do so hate to deny my readers what they want.

Lucy stretched out in her bed, feeling the pleasant heaviness in her limbs that came only after a long, peaceful sleep.

They’d gotten back to Cairo to find a city that was slowly repairing itself. Many were dead, either from the illnesses in the plague, or from simply being a firstborn son, or killed by one of Lucy’s group in their attempt to flee the mob. Lucy and Jiya had immediately found their hands full dealing with the museum now that several eminent Egyptologists and the director of the museum were dead, while Wyatt and Flynn had recovered from their wounds and Amy and Rufus had done whatever was needed to be helpful. There had been funerals to arrange, people to write, accounts to settle.

Among other things, Carol’s death meant that Amy and Lucy had inherited a sizeable fortune. That had convinced Amy not to sell all of the treasure that they’d found on the back of her camel, but rather to display the treasure in the museum. The new exhibit had been a massive hit.

Lucy was already talking about going on another expedition. Jiya was placed in charge of the museum, seeing as she’d helped Denise to run it all these years. Rufus was going to help her. Lucy could have stayed but… she could already feel the desert calling her again.

“You’ve got the bug,” Amy had said, grinning. “I always knew you’d love expeditions once you went on one.”

But while all of this work had to be taken care of, it had left precious little time for rest or recreation.

Until now.

Now, she’d slept for what felt like an entire day straight, and it was glorious.

Across the bed from her was Flynn, stretched out on his stomach, still blissfully asleep. She could hear the quiet splash of water from the bathroom that meant Wyatt was soaking in the tub. Cleo was taking advantage of the sunlight and was on the windowsill, also napping.

She had nowhere to go and nothing to do for the first time in weeks.

Well, she did have something to do. Or, rather, someone. Two someones.

Lucy slid over to Flynn, kissing the scars that ran down his back. Some were from the mummies, some were older. Flynn made a rumbling noise in his chest as he woke up. “ _Dobro jutro_ ,” he said, his voice scratchy from sleep.

Lucy pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade, her heart swelling. She loved him impossibly. She had worried that going into a sort of retirement after spending his life fighting or preparing to fight an ancient evil would make Flynn restless, but he’d taken to it happily, helping her with whatever she needed, teasing Wyatt, helping to translate texts and bonding with Cleo.

“I’m going to go see what Wyatt’s up to,” she whispered.

Flynn hummed in acknowledgment. Lucy didn’t bother with a robe or nightgown, just walked into the bathroom to see Wyatt floating in the tub, his head tipped back against the rim, eyes closed.

“Decided you were tired of napping in the bed and wanted to nap in here instead?” she asked, stepping into the tub and settling into his lap.

They hadn’t had much time for sex, just a few hurried sessions snatched when they could, Flynn getting his hand around Wyatt’s cock in the tub, Lucy blowing Flynn against the wall, or fucking Wyatt hard and fast before collapsing into sleep, or getting fingered by Flynn in the morning before she had to rush to a meeting with the museum’s board of donors.

But now… now she could sink into Wyatt’s lap slow and easy, smile at him as he raised his head and smiled lazy and almost drunkenly at her, as his hands wrapped around her waist.

“Good morning,” he told her, letting her kiss him.

In the bedroom Lucy heard the sound of Flynn getting up and padding around. She kissed down Wyatt’s neck. “You know what we have?” she asked.

“Hmm, what?”

“All the time we want.” She kissed along his jaw. “Time to do all the things… that need care… and patience…”

She could feel Wyatt blushing. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” She pulled back, rolling her hips, feeling him harden against her. “Would you like that?”

Wyatt had definitely shown signs that he wanted Flynn to do to him what he did to Lucy. When Flynn fucked her, she could feel Wyatt’s eyes on them, watching hungrily. But they hadn’t had time to do it properly, seeing as Wyatt had never done that before.

Now, though…

He nodded. “Yes,” he whispered.

Lucy kissed him proudly. She had something she’d like done as well, another thing they hadn’t had time for.

Flynn seemed to have a bit of an oral fixation, licking his lips frequently, and Lucy wanted that mouth between her legs.

“Then come here,” she told Wyatt, standing up and pulling him with her.

The water flowed off them both, making a puddle on the floor, and Lucy laughed as they nearly slipped getting out of the tub. Wyatt tossed a towel at her.

Flynn opened the door, looking more awake, a dressing gown half on. “I see you two are in a mood.”

Lucy tugged on his robe, pushing it off him. “You are overdressed, Mr. Flynn,” she told him, running her tongue over his chest.

Flynn growled and wrapped an arm around her, kissing her properly, his tongue sliding past her lips until her knees buckled and she dug her nails into his arms. Wyatt slid up behind her, kissing the nape of her neck, her shoulder, just under her ear, until Flynn pulled him in for a kiss as well, Lucy happily pressed in on both sides, relishing in the slide of their skin and the warmth they generated.

She smiled up at them, her chest warming at the way Wyatt leaned into Flynn, the way Flynn brushed their noses together, the way they just breathed together, mouths brushing, all of them safe and warm and happy together.

Lucy slid out from between them, taking both their hands, leading them towards the bed. Wyatt got a mischievous look in his eye and ran forward, catching her around the waist and carrying her. Lucy laughed, smacking him playfully. “Put me down!”

Flynn grinned as Wyatt tried to set her down on the bed and Lucy used the momentum to roll them so that she was on top, grinning down at Wyatt and giving him a quick kiss on the nose. Then she turned in his arms, letting him kiss her as she settled back against his chest, crooking a finger at Flynn as she dragged her tongue along the roof of Wyatt’s mouth.

When Flynn got onto the bed Lucy spread her legs, pulling away from Wyatt to thread a hand through Flynn’s hair.

He stared at her, his eyes going dark, licking his lips.

Lucy’s breath hitched and she nodded.

The corner of Flynn’s mouth flicked upwards into a momentary smirk before he bent his head down and slowly began to kiss up her thighs. He took his time, sucking and running the tip of his tongue along her skin as Wyatt continued to kiss her, scattering more kisses over her face and neck and shoulders when she had to tip her head back to suck in gulps of air.

She should have known that Flynn would be a tease once he had time.

When he finally got right between her legs, nosing her folds apart, he didn’t go right in. Instead he lapped almost delicately at her clit, giving her only just enough to keep her shuddering in Wyatt’s arms, then going back around until she was making desperate mewling noises.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Wyatt murmured, almost reverent. Lucy clutched at him as Flynn started to lick into her properly, twisting his tongue into her, running it along the slick silk of her skin until she was openly moaning.

“Please,” she gasped out, her hips twitching helplessly, Wyatt’s hands running over her skin and Flynn’s mouth between her legs the only things she knew.

Flynn paused just long enough to raise his head and look up at her, smirking, pleased as punch, before diving back in and sucking hard at her clit, running his tongue over it, circling it, until Lucy’s hips arched and she cried out, orgasm hitting her like a prolonged jolt of electricity.

She sagged in Wyatt’s arms, letting first him and then Flynn kiss her, shuddering with aftershocks when she tasted herself on Flynn’s tongue.

Then she pulled away, her limbs trembling slightly still but determined. “Garcia.” She pulled Flynn to her, kissing him in between each word. “Let’s show Wyatt just how much fun this whole thing can be, hmm?”

Flynn grinned into her next kiss and then she pulled back, twisting, bracing herself on Wyatt’s thighs and sucking his cock down her throat.

Wyatt’s hips bucked and he gave a strangled shout, one that was cut off as Flynn kissed him. Lucy swirled her tongue around the head, taking as much of him down as she could, sucking hard as she came back up again. She wanted him to be as desperate as possible when Flynn touched him, wanted all hesitations and worries to be washed away by feeling good.

She heard the bedside drawer open as Flynn got the lube, dimly heard him ask Wyatt if he was certain, and heard Wyatt confirm it. Lucy sank down onto him a few more times, hard and fast until her jaw ached, and then she pulled back, moving aside for Flynn.

There was a little nervousness in Wyatt’s eyes but it was washed away in a haze as she kissed up his chest, running her tongue along his bottom lip, keeping him distracted as Flynn spread Wyatt’s legs and began to slowly work him open. Wyatt’s brow pinched at first as he got used to it, but then he slowly began to adjust.

“How’s it feel?” Lucy asked, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“Weird,” Wyatt admitted.

Flynn changed the angle of his wrist slightly and Wyatt jolted, his eyes going wide and his mouth falling open.

Lucy laughed. “Now how’s it feel?”

“Holy fucking shit,” Wyatt replied, his voice hoarse.

Lucy kissed him as Wyatt’s body went tight, easily over-sensitized with the new sensation. Flynn didn’t seem all that determined to get Wyatt all the way up to a cock this time, sticking just with two fingers until Wyatt was shoving back down onto him, moaning, biting down hard on Lucy’s lip as he came.

“Good?” she whispered against his mouth.

“Nnngh,” Wyatt said, sounding drugged.

She looked at Flynn, who was staring at them like he was starving and they were holding a platter of food just out of his reach. She crawled over to him, pushing him down onto the bed with a light press of her palm against his chest.

“Hard work should be rewarded,” she told him, and then she was sinking down onto him, taking him in.

Flynn groaned, pulling her to him and kissing the life out of her, his hands roaming all over her like he was trying to map her out by touch. Lucy pushed herself down onto him a few times, eager, demanding, until Flynn rolled her and took control, far too impatient for finesse, rocking into her with sharp, sweet thrusts as she hitched a leg around his waist.

The angle was perfect and she moaned, throwing her head back as Flynn moved inside of her, filling her in that almost-too-much way that she craved. She could feel a second orgasm building up behind her eyes and she gave herself over to it, shaking like a leaf as she sank into it and felt Flynn empty himself into her with a final, hard thrust.

They all lay there together for a moment, limbs entangled, each of them struggling to get their breath back.

“We are definitely not leaving this bed today,” Lucy announced.

Up on the windowsill, Cleo gave them a look of absolute disdain and then departed as if to say _have fun, you perverts._

Lucy just grinned and crawled until she was happily ensconced between the men. Her men. Men she'd be spending the rest of her life with, going on expeditions with, building a proper home with.

Wyatt slung an arm over her waist while Flynn reached up to trace the lines of her face with his thumb.

Oh yes. They were having a round two.

Right after this nap.


End file.
